South Pasadena Leash Ordinance Targets Potbellied Pigs

Despite winning a court case, attracting national media attention and gaining the support of many South Pasadena residents, Tulip, an 80-pound potbellied pig, may soon be in shackles.

Well, not exactly shackles. A new city ordinance that targets potbellied pigs will require Tulip to wear a leash during her daily outings. But to Kalyn Baker, the woman who went to court to fight for her porker’s right to waddle unharnessed, a leash seems just as confining.

In a late-night meeting Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously to adopt the leash ordinance, which will become law after a second reading Oct. 16, said Mayor Dorothy Cohen.

The law also will have a “pooper-scooper” provision similar to that for dogs that will require owners of potbellied pigs to pick up after their pets, said Cohen, who attributed the decision to “all the interest generated by Tulip.”

“I’m outraged,” Baker said. “They just don’t know when to quit.”

Tulip first aroused the interest of the Pasadena Humane Society last year when it unsuccessfully tried to put a hold on the pig through a municipal leash law.

At the time, the law requiring dogs to wear leashes in public did not apply to pigs, so Tulip walked free.

But the Los Angeles district attorney’s office came back against the swine in June, charging Baker with “herding an animal in public.” The offense, which also did not apply to Tulip’s case, held little weight in Pasadena Superior Court and turned the pig’s freedom into the cause celebre for a day.

Hamming it up for camera crews and reporters after the June hearing, Tulip was unleashed before a crowd outside her favorite South Pasadena eatery, a fast-food restaurant on Fair Oaks Avenue, to celebrate Baker’s victory.

But Steve McNall, executive director of the Pasadena Humane Society, said using a leash is the least Baker can do to protect her animal.

“I commend the City Council for this,” he said after the decision was announced. “When you’re in a public area with 1,500-pound cars going up and down the street, you have to have some rules.”

Baker, who plans to speak with an attorney about the ordinance today, said her pig has no neck, which makes donning a leash an impossibility.

“If she wanted to pull out of the leash, she can,” she said. “I can put a harness around her back, but she can wiggle out of that, too.”