4/18/2003: Return of the diving pig
 

http://cellar.org/2003/babedives.jpg

About a year and a half ago, the concept of featuring an animal was born to the IotD in this thread when dave suggested that it was a great image for a Friday. He was saying that it was appropriate because it was a happy image, but somehow I thought it was appropriate because it was an animal, and from then on I tried to find animal images for Fridays.

I'm not sure if this is the same pig as the original, but it probably is, because this is a festival in Sydney and the original was Aussie in origin. Either way, it's an animal pic and a happy pic. Love the diving pig.

http://cellar.org/2003/babedives2.jpg

Although this shot has an entirely different and unrelated (and uninteresting) caption, I think this is the same pig again from a different angle, because this image showed up on the same day.

The pig's name: "Babe". (Too obvious!)

Man, that sure is one HAPPY PIG. Just gets me all warm and fuzzy and happy-feelin' all over.

I dunno, but I kinda figured that on Good Friday, the requisite animal shot wouldn't include MEAT. Aren't there any shots available of happy diving FISH?

How can you tell he's happy? He sort of looks like he's frothing at the mouth in the second one.

This is a famous art print of what might be a cousin to your piggie. At least he looks like a volunteer

http://www.respree.com/cgi-bin/SoftC...S337?E+scstore

As you can see by the set up here, the diving pig really doesn't have a lot of choice if it wants to get off the diving board. The only way off is down

http://members.cox.net/gregwest983/S...pig_syd103.jpg

5.5 5.4 5.3 6.0 (the Aussie judge) 5.2 ...

pretty good form so far, but you need to see the clean entrance into the water. :)

I don't want to be *too* obvious, but I'll bet PETA hates this with a passion usually reserved for mink farming.

They don't care much for diving mules, according to this...

http://www.peta.org/mc/facts/fsent7.html

Disclaimer: I am not a PETA person, I am a normal, animal loving person, and I would have to spend some quality time with the pig before rendering judgement about how it feels about what it is doing for a living.

Tell PETA we'll be fitting "Babe" with a prosthesis on Monday. After all you can't eat a special pig all at once. Not even for Easter.

I bet that pig loves diving. They're pretty smart critters and can make their wishes known. That is one mf'n charmin' pig. Happy Friday all!

I really would like to see the entrance .. that looks like the belly flop position to me.

He's smiling! That's how we know he likes it. That's how we knew almost two years ago.

(Griff - Pulp Fiction reference intentional or no?)

Not the same pig as last year. This is not a pig, but a piglet, only a couple of months old. Look at the size of the ears, eyes, and feet relative to body size. A full grown pig is huge, hundreds of pounds, and fat around the middle. Only piglets are this skinny.

In a couple of months he'll be too big to do this with any degree of grace, and he'll be converted into pork chops. And bacon. And picnic shoulder. And sliced ham. And ribs. And fatback. And ham hocks. And chitlins. And souse. And scrapple.

Mmmm, scrapple.

C'mon now, didn't you watch the Olympics? None of the divers or swimmers were fat around the middle.:D
Seriously though, yuo're absolutely right. It's a young'un.

Intentional.

looks like a grimace to me. Remember when Chimps appear to smile it is really an expression of fear.

Agh! That second pig comes straight out of a horror movie! It's going to try to kill me!

Look at the eyes, the unnatural posture, the frothing mouth!

That is one scary pig!

Gotta be rabies. or maybe hoof and mouth. or maybe there's just a big ol' load of fresh slop in the trough.

It's hard to tell with pigs.