Pigs wag tails

It’s not their fault, really.

Their appearance on my doorstep every morning coincides with my longest time ever spent without a hairy, wet-nosed significant other in my life.

Their brown eyes and beguiling ways enchant me even as I feel like I’m cheating on the one who really has my heart, back in Sydney.

And no one ever told me that pigs wag their tails.

Not only do they sleep with smiles on their faces and trot along with a spring in their step, they are also cute enough to wag their tails. All the time. Whether the wagging is to keep flies away from the back door (there’s probably a better euphemism for that) or to show affection when a certain enthralled foreigner walks past, I don’t really need to know. Details are clearly not important to someone who thinks a piglet would make a great pet.

I have practically always had a dog in my life. So it's unfortunate that the dogs of Dili are cat-like in their aloofness. Timorese dogs are lean, mean and self-sufficient. They’re used to getting relentlessly downtrodden by people, so they tend to eye me off as if they’re sizing up my propensity to throw a shoe at them.

The local piggies, on the other hand, are more like the dogs we have at home. Often overfed, possibly mollycoddled and secure in the knowledge that (for now at least) they occupy a very comfortable spot in the family sphere.

If you’re unable to see the inherent cuteness of these pigs, you will begin at least to understand how starved of animal affection I have been.

Also, you haven’t seen the tails in motion.

Piggy the pig - Dili

Pidgy the dog - Sydney