For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 13, 2012

Aren’t boars dangerous?

Female pigs can be very agressive too, especially if they have babies to protect.

@gmartin 997Pigs related to elephants? Since when?

I’ve always preferred the name Dassie for the rock hyrax, but then I first encountered them in South Africa. Cute beasts!

I can see that many of you are not farmers :) The “Boar Hogs” you are referring to – with tusks to gore people and much aggression, are wild boars, not domestic farm pigs. The Boar referred to in the strip, is a domestic pig that is a non-neutered tuskless male, used for stud (breeding purposes). Unless antagonized in some way that would push him to ire, it’s doubtful that he’d do much more than snuffle around Lizzie looking for food. Now, if she had a fresh (in heat, ready to breed) female pig with her… he might get a little rambunctious, but still, not even in the same ball park as the wild and scary mean boar hogs you folks are describing.

My mom, who grew up on a farm, had a saying when something happened that was unpleasant or a lot of trouble. She’d say, “I ain’t had so much fun since the hogs et my brother!” She was being fey and speaking metaphorically. No hogs ate any of her brothers.

When I was in the Army, in Germany, one of my section mates came from a hog farm in Tennessee. He always said that the most difficult animals to work with, and the nastiest, were hogs. Different from wild boars, of course.We saw plenty of wild boar hogs. We’d sort of play hide-and-seek with them, especially at night. I was never charged by one (thank God), although I twice stumbled upon boar hogs that were busy rooting through our garbage.

Some guys would warn us that the young ones liked to come and nibble on things – like fingers or toes that were sticking out of sleeping bags. Another of my section mates woke to find one sniffing around him while in his sack; he hit it in the face with his gas mask to scare it away.Yes, lots of fun, those boar hogs!

If you want the distinction between domestic hogs and ferals, come to north Texas. Feral hogs are destroying farmland and genetically reverting to their wild ancestry due to some idiot importing European wild hogs for hunting targets. Few human damage so far, but it is reached problem population only recently.

Fascinating comments today… thanks!

Yes Boars are dangerous, especially if you’re driving and they talk your ear off and put you to sleep. (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Since none of the farming side of my extended family kept hogs, I have little experience with them.But, during my auto appraising career, one local body shop had a sow who lived in their storage lot.Though she didn’t appear to be aggressive, the sow was huge, and far more intimidating than any junkyard dog.

Wild hogs do indeed eat anything they can dig up, catch or steal. They are especially partial to snakes.

many years ago there was a murder here in rural Ky. a woman was killed and her body was dumped into a hog pen. Several days later the farmer was checking on the hogs and discovered the woman’s skull and a few bones that was all that was left. They may not attack someone who can fend them off but if you are hurt and on the ground ( or dead) that’s a very different matter.

My expression was “Haven’t had so much excitement since the day the old boar hog got astraddle of the electric fence!”

Incidentally, a boring person is a BORE.A BOAR is a young male pig(Becomes a BARROW if he has an “unfortunate accident.”)A GUILT is a young female, becomes a SOW when has a litter of pigs.

We once had a boar that had excessive tusks.A pair of bolt cutters took care of that.Incidentally, aggresiveness varies from breed to breed.

BORE means to drill a hole, also the hole that’s drilled.BOAR is a male swine.BOER is the war Major Hoople was always talking about.

For more about marketing of pigs, see TRAINS magazine Nov. 2009 pp.56-57

Almost. A wild boar did a lot of hurt to Old Yeller, but he recovered. That was from Yeller taking on the boar when the boar attacked the boy. If you remember that scene, it wasn’t pretty.Old Yeller later tangled with a wolf that, as it turned out, gave him rabies. He was penned up, but the rabies got him, and he had to be “put down” the way they did it in the good old days.He was replaced by Young Yeller. I think it was one of his pups.

My 5th grade teacher owned a huge farm. When her female sow gave birth to a littler of pigs, she acted like she won the lottery!

Didn’t anyone watch “Hannibal” The hogs ate one of the bad guys in that one and everyone know that movies don’t lie.

Being a city born and bred girl, I didn’t know anything about pigs, sows, hogs, boars, etc. — that is, until today!!! Thanks, everyone, for the very interesting information. A majority if the time, I find the comments are WAY better than the comic is itself!!!!!

LIZZIE STILL HAS THE KITTY IN THE SECOND STRIP!!!!!!