Chihuahua and Pig Best Friends Named Timon and Pumbaa Rescued Together in Arizona

A chihuahua named Timon rides into rescue on the back of a pig named Pumbaa. That is the image that came out of Arizona earlier this month, and it is worth sitting with before we talk about how the two of them got there.

The Arizona Humane Society took the pair in after their previous owner was arrested on charges that had nothing to do with animal cruelty. The dog and the pig came as a set. Nobody asked them to be separated, and as it turned out, nobody could.

"Immediately, AHS staff saw just how strong of a bond these two have, especially when Pumbaa is kind enough to allow Timon to hitch a ride on his back from time to time," the shelter said in its release. That is not a line a humane society writes about every intake. It is the kind of detail that tells you the work ahead was never going to be one animal at a time.

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Shelters run on logistics. How many kennels are open, who can foster, which animal goes where, and for how long. A bonded pair throws a wrench into all of it, because the right outcome stops being two adoptions and becomes one. You cannot split the difference. You either place both, or you have failed both.

It happens more than people think. Littermates who have never spent a night apart. An old dog and the younger one who became its eyes. A cat and the dog it was raised beside. Adoption counselors will tell you, in full sentences if you let them, that breaking up a pair to move animals faster tends to cost you later, in returns, in stress, in the animal that stops eating in a new home. The faster placement is not always the cheaper one.

A chihuahua and a pig is the version of this nobody plans for. Professionals do not recommend that dogs and pigs live together, and ordinarily that advice is sound. Timon and Pumbaa did not get the memo.

The handoff to Better Piggies

Pumbaa arrived needing medical care the shelter was not set up to give a pig. So AHS did the thing rescue people do when an animal lands outside their wheelhouse. They picked up the phone and called someone who could. The shelter reached Better Piggies Rescue, and Better Piggies had the room and the expertise to take both the pig and the dog. The pair did not have to come apart to get help.

That is the part of these stories that rarely makes the photo. The transport, the referral, the second organization that says yes when the first one has reached the edge of what it can do. A chihuahua and a pig stayed together because two groups in Arizona were willing to hand off rather than turn away.

According to a post on the Better Piggies Rescue Facebook page, the two of them have a permanent home now. Pumbaa, the rescue wrote, "made himself right at home in the front of the sanctuary" with the resident pigs, and the plan is to keep him on as a permanent ambassador.

"He's a natural greeter, and I can't wait for everyone to meet him when we start up tours in September," the rescue said. Then the line that matters: "Plus, he needs to be near his best friend, Timon, who we are working with to become a sanctuary dog."

Better Piggies Rescue was established in 2017 near Cave Creek, Arizona, and is one of the only pig sanctuaries in the state. A place built for pigs made room for a small dog because the pig would not have settled without him.

Somewhere near Cave Creek, when the tours start, Pumbaa will work the front gate. And if the shelter's account holds up, Timon will be close by, eight pounds of chihuahua who got where he was going on the back of his best friend.