--- title: A Man Had to Get Police Help After a Pig Began Stalking Him description: Ohio police thought a man was joking when he called in to get rid of a pig on his trail — but he was serious about his unwanted companion. canonical: https://time.com/5287023/ohio-pig-police/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-22T15:55:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:53:03.439Z og:title: A Man Called the Police When a Pig Began Following Him og:description: Police thought he was inebriated, but he was actually trying to rid of th epig og:url: https://time.com/5287023/ohio-pig-police/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Man Called the Police When a Pig Began Following Him twitter:description: Police thought he was inebriated, but he was actually trying to rid of th epig twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # A Man Had to Get Police Involved When a Pig Started Casually Stalking Him > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=e992f917-c3ba-4f27-8bcc-866406975c5b&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner May 22, 2018 3:55 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner May 22, 2018 3:55 PM UTC When police receive calls in the wee hours of a weekend morning, they have reason to be skeptical about the caller’s sobriety. For the officers on duty at the [North Ridgeville](http://www.nridgeville.org/Police.aspx) Police Department in Ohio on Saturday morning at 5:26 a.m., they were particularly leery of a caller who complained he was being followed home by an animal. And not just any animal: [a pig](http://time.com/4995237/crispr-gene-editing-pigs-fat/). “Riiiight,” the police department joked [in their Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/North-Ridgeville-Police-Department-189080547779140/) on the incident about the “obviously drunk guy.” But after officers were dispatched to assess the situation, they quickly discovered the call had nothing to do with inebriation — and everything to do with porcine friendliness. (Or over-friendliness, in this case.) “Upon arrival, they found a very sober male walking eastbound… from the actual Amtrak train station in Elyria, not the bar. Oh, and he was being followed by a pig,” the police account continues. The man, who remains unidentified, had mysteriously picked up an unwanted companion in the form of the 50-lb. pig and “didn’t know what to do,” at which point he called up the cops. “The pig was nudging the person and wanted to be petted,” an officer further [explained to NPR](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/21/611585069/ohio-police-help-man-who-was-being-followed-home-by-a-pig). Ultimately, an officer was able to “wrangle” the animal into the police cruiser, after which she was taken to their dog kennels. (Her name, NPR reports, is Zoey.) An update notes that the pig was returned about three hours later to her owner. As for the man? It seems he has decided not to press charges in the curious case of the pig stalking incident. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5287023/ohio-pig-police/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5287023/ohio-pig-police/"},"headline":"A Man Had to Get Police Involved When a Pig Started Casually Stalking Him","datePublished":"2018-05-22T15:55:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:53:03.439Z","description":"The curious case of the pig in Ohio","url":"https://time.com/5287023/ohio-pig-police/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5287023/ohio-pig-police/","name":"A Man Had to Get Police Involved When a Pig Started Casually Stalking Him"}}]}] ```