When it comes to potbellies, he’s pigheaded

I am at my desk looking at a picture of a potbellied pig that is sitting on its haunches staring at me in an accusatory manner. I’m not sure if this is Ruby, Madame Pearl or juicy little Chorizo, but I do know by its expression that it has it in for me. The pig hates me.

For the sake of temporary identification, I will call him Porky. If he’s a she, I apologize, but in his sitting position I am at a loss to determine the animal’s gender. I wouldn’t look if I could, but that’s neither here nor there.

Porky’s photograph was contained in one of a hundred or so e-mails I received after poking mild fun at the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary in Arizona. I implied, I guess, that pigs were for pork chops and not for keeping in the house as pets and discovered to my amazement that there is a linkage of potbellied pig websites all over the world. They sent my comments streaking through cyberspace, and pig lovers everywhere joined to condemn me for being anti-swineitic.

And while they were at it, they had also accessed an earlier column concerning my reluctance to neuter my cat Ernie, telling me I was “discusting” and a fool who probably ought to be thrown as feed to the millions of feral cats roaming America.

Among the more reasonable members of the breed were one or two who suggested that there was a process by which a male cat could be neutered without losing its testicles and another that suggested artificial testicles. Either, they wrote, would allow a cat to maintain its male image and its dignity without adding to the feline population.

Another offered advice on how to stop Ernie from biting: I should squeal at him. “If you’re not the squealing type,” a woman e-mailed from Olympia, Wash., “you can try ‘ow!’ in the highest-pitched voice you can muster. Try to sound at least emotionally wounded by the assault.”

Ernie sits on my desk a lot and one day reached over and bit my hand for no reason at all. I let out a falsetto scream, which scared the living hell out of him and caused my wife to rush in wondering if I had dragged a woman in off the street. When I explained what I was doing, she and Ernie looked at me the way one observes a demented uncle and walked away. I felt like Howard Dean after his primal scream.

Back to the “pig community,” as it calls itself. My column caused many of its members to wonder sniffily if I were also in favor of barbecuing dogs, gerbils, lovebirds and other animals of a domestic nature. I answer them today by remembering that when one is hungry, any animal is food. I think they feel that way at Ironwood too, else why name a pig Chorizo?

One man wrote about a pig his family had owned that kept escaping by jumping a fence. They called him Sweeney the Jumping Pig. The man wrote: “Well, Sweeney made too many jumps one time so they slaughtered him and had a big barbecue at Hanley’s resort over on the Calistoga side of Mt. St. Helena.”

On the other hand, grammar school students in McCaysville, Ga., raised money for victims of Katrina by kissing a pig. It’s too complicated to explain, but suffice to say that the whole school, including three teachers, kissed the pig and none of them died from any kind of swine-related disease. Inherent in their e-mail was the suggestion that I might try kissing one myself someday, but I wouldn’t kiss a pig if I’d just downed my third martini and it was smiling at me from the other end of the bar.

In the assault by members of the pig mafia, I also learned of sanctuaries for various other animals, including donkeys, minks, rats and chickens. Howard Rosenberg, the best television critic this newspaper has ever had, wrote once about personally saving a chicken from becoming fricasseed. I see Howard once in a while and still wonder what happened to the chicken, but he’s sensitive about it so I just let it go.

There was an effort in Topanga a while back to count bats that lived under a bridge. I can’t recall whether the purpose was to find homes for the bats or to just take a census of bats, but it was a big deal that a lot of people took part in. Songs and poems were written about the bats, and people danced naked in the streets.

I was taken to task once in Topanga for writing about running over a rattlesnake after a park ranger declared that we ought to talk snakes into pacification. It was curled up in the middle of our driveway. My wife said, “Talk to him. Tell him you’re a newspaper columnist.” I ran over him instead. She sighed and said, “Well, I guess he knows it now.”

Mary Schanz, president of the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary, has invited me to visit the place, but I’m afraid that any request for expense money to cover such a visit would be greeted by the kind of roar that would scatter cats for miles around. However, if I’m ever in the area, I’ll stop by and say hello. I know the pigs would be happy to see me. I can already hear their squeals of delight.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez @latimes.com.