The Chinese zodiac considers 2019 the year of the pig, but hogs weren’t the only creatures to make headlines in Edmonton last year.
From an escaped snake to a wayward racing pigeon, creatures of all shapes and sizes were newsmakers.
Here are some of our favourite homegrown animal stories from 2019.
Hefty heifer
A brown cow was so heavy, she literally broke the scales.
The fluffy Simmental cross, born in March on a cattle ranch near Westlock, weighed in at a staggering 208 pounds, more than double the weight of the average newborn calf.
She is, by far, the heaviest calf on record with the Westlock Veterinary Centre.
“When it first came out, I looked at it and I was awestruck,” said veterinarian Collin Lawrence, who assisted in the delivery.
“This calf was in a league of its own.”
The calf’s official weight could not be confirmed on the night of her birth. An industrial-strength scale couldn’t handle her girth.
“They had a scale that they had put on the tractor and when they attempted to weigh her, the scale literally broke,” Lawrence said
“I’m not sure if it pulled a spring or what, but everyone laughed, ‘Boy, she’s a big one.'”
The calf had to be delivered by C-section.
“When I went in there to manipulate the calf, it was like pushing a boulder,” he said.
“Freak of nature is the closest you could come to a diagnosis on a calf that big.”
Best friends forever
Friendship really does come in all sizes.
Heaven, a two-month-old blind calf, and Sweetpea, a pit bull rescued from the fighting ring, are the best of pals.
They can often be found side by side, roaming the grounds of the Saving Grace Animal Society in Alix, Alta.
The pair hit it off immediately and will be spending the rest of their days together at the rescue agency.
“They took to each other and immediately bonded,” said Erin Deems, the animal rescue’s executive director.
“Love knows no species boundaries. When two animals can bond like that, it’s pretty heartwarming.”
An escaped snake
When Jay Taylor’s pet snake Scarlet disappeared from his Edmonton apartment, he assumed she was gone for good.
Instead, the California kingsnake emerged from hiding four months later — slithering through the vents and sliding into the bathroom of a neighbouring apartment.
Four months after its silent escape, the snake was discovered hissing in a bathtub — much to the horror of the suite’s unsuspecting tenant and her tiny dog.
“Her Pomeranian was in there losing its mind,” Taylor said. “She walked in there, and there was the snake, knocking over shampoo bottles.
“I would say she was a little distraught.”
The snake was reunited with her owner and was allowed to feast on some fat rodent snacks.
“She was pretty hungry,” Taylor said. “I fed her some mice and she’s doing well.”
Singed swine
A pet pot-bellied pig named Mr. Pua was only slightly scorched after an Alberta mayor saved his bacon last Christmas.
The stubborn, arthritic, 75-pound porker was rescued from a house fire on an acreage near Millet.
Dressed only in pyjamas, Angela Pauls and her husband managed to get their cats, dogs and another pet pig — Matilda — safely out of their burning mobile home.
But Mr. Pua, their older and much larger house pig, was trapped inside a back bedroom.
The saviour of the swine was none other than volunteer firefighter Tyler Gandam, the mayor of nearby Wetaskiwin.
Gandam said it was a strange night on the job. He’d saved cats from trees and a duck from a sewer but never a pig.
He had to wrestle the stubborn swine to safety.
“A person, you can pull out and not have to worry about them biting you. I wasn’t sure if Mr. Pua was a biter or not,” Gandam said.
“I don’t know how heroic I would call it but I was just glad we were able to reunite Mr. Pua and Angela.”
A moose-licking
Rick Schuh and his wife Monica were driving near Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park when a moose emerged from the bush and began to sample the paint job on their SUV.
The moose gave Schuh’s Nissan Rogue a thorough spit shine, slurping at the bumper and nibbling at the grille.
“When a giant animal like that wants to lick your car, you let it,” Schuh said.
“It was a free car wash, just wait your turn.”
Schuh, who captured the encounter on video, wasn’t the only driver treated to a tongue-washing. He thinks the moose had a hankering for the taste of road salt.
“We noticed that it stopped briefly to lick a Mercedes,” he said. “It was a beautiful white Mercedes, nice and clean, and it spent barely any time on that.
“The dirtier the car, the more time it spent. We were just a giant mobile salt lick.”
Trench cats
A couple of clumsy cats likely lost a few of their nine lives after falling down a trench.
It was a Friday morning in April when fire crews got the call. Two cats had fallen down a sinkhole in the southeast Edmonton neighbourhood of Kenilworth.
The cats were trapped for days in a deep trench under the foundation of a house. Their plight captured the attention of cat lovers around the world who watched the ordeal unfold on a livestream video feed.
After 11 days, lured by the aroma of Easter ham and canned sardines, the cats finally escaped from the hole.
<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/YEGCATRESCUE2019?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#YEGCATRESCUE2019</a><br>Cat was spotted this morning using the beams to get up. It got startled and jumped back down. So we wait. Great news it isn’t injured but still have only seen one. Fire crews said they spotted two. Not sure. Keeping it quiet so it comes out. <a href=”https://t.co/hlwfPmE0q5″>pic.twitter.com/hlwfPmE0q5</a>
—@RAWHOLISTICyeg
Ode to an African grey
Spike was no ordinary bird. A beloved pet store parrot, famous for barking at customers and meowing at cats, she earned a tribute that befit her lofty perch within the St. Albert community.
Her death in July — announced through an obituary in the local newspaper — prompted an outpouring of condolences.
The feisty African grey parrot, a fixture at Mr. Pet’s for 30 years, would dance, offer high-fives and beg for sunflower seeds.
“People have been coming here for years and generations to see Spike,” said Kelly Weins, the manager at Mr. Pet’s.
“No one can replace her.”
Spike’s ashes will be kept in a permanent shrine erected in her honour near her favourite perch in the store.
Bird of another colour
A wayward racing pigeon encountered some friendly human hosts and introduced its rescuers to a whole new world of racing.
Morgan Christiansen had the colourful encounter with the bright pink racing bird in May.
Christiansen’s husband Donny was enjoying some sun in their backyard in Leduc when he spotted a flash of fuchsia flitting from fence post to fence post.
The bird’s owner told the Christiansens the pigeon had failed to return from a practice flight in the Calmar area and had been on the loose for a couple of days.
Its tail feathers had been dyed pink with food colouring, a common trick to make the birds easier to distinguish in competitions.
“I liked having him around so much, I was hoping the owners weren’t going to pick him up,” Morgan Christiansen said.
The couple started reading every article they could find on racing pigeons and are totally fascinated by the sport.
While they won’t be betting on birds anytime soon, they were given a prized pigeon of their own, courtesy of the pigeon’s grateful owner.
“We’ll see what happens. But apparently you can train them to stay around you, and you can buy little diapers for them so they can fly around your house.”
Sweets the stowaway
One lucky cat is looking for a home after hitching a harrowing ride inside the exhaust system of Pam Wellings’s car.
Wellings had just pulled into the garage of her St. Albert home in mid-December when she heard a loud meow coming from inside her vehicle.
The cat had survived a 15-minute drive across town. It was wedged in so tightly it took a mechanic two hours to pry her out.
The cat, now named Sweets, smelled of horribly of exhaust fumes but was surprisingly unscathed. As of Jan. 1, the long-haired tabby was waiting to be adopted from the Edmonton Humane Society.
