Pets or Pork Chops?

Claudia Puig’s article about the making of the movie “Babe” was charming (“A Militia of Dr. Dolittles,” Calendar, Aug. 5). As someone who shares her residence with a pig, I can corroborate animal trainer Karl Miller’s comments that pigs are very intelligent and sociable. He says of the trainers’ relationships with the pigs: “We became their mother, father, brother and sisters.” What a pleasant portrait of human-animal interactions! One question: When the 48 piglets outgrew their usefulness as actors, were they slaughtered and converted into pork chops?

JO-ANN SHELTON

Santa Barbara

So Karl Lewis trained 48 pigs for the movie “Babe.” By Lewis’ own words these animals appear to be extremely sociable as well as possessing keen intelligence. I’d love to know what happened to those 48 pigs who so trustingly became the offspring of these so-called Dr. Dolittles. Were they adopted into loving homes or did they become dinner on the tables of those homes? I can only hope the former, otherwise I’d have to label this a post-filming snuff movie and call for a boycott of “Babe” by anyone touting family values.

GARY DONTZIG

Los Angeles

So attached did animal trainer Karl Lewis Miller and other crew members become to their charges, that production officials insisted breeders sign an agreement that when the pigs were returned to them, they would be used for academic agricultural study or other pursuits, but not for food.