In small towns, first names often suffice. If you live near Niwot, chances are you’ve heard of Winston.
“He is definitely a celebrity in the area,” Rod Mazzone said.
Winston can’t walk out the front door without getting noticed. He often greets fans and puts on a show for the cameras. Bring a carrot or an apple, and he’ll be happy to pose for pictures. He eats up all the attention.
“Winston is our Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig,” Mazzone said. “He’s a 90-pound bundle of joy.”
Mazzone and his wife, Elizabeth, have had Winston for seven years. They picked him up when he was just 6-months-old from the Pig-A-Sus Homestead Sanctuary in Mack, Colorado.
Winston’s a full-fledged member of the family. They plan to raise him, not braise him.
“No, we will not be eating him at any time,” Mazzone laughed.
Winston spends most days roaming the front yard of the family’s home in Southwest Longmont. Cars, runners and cyclists often stop to say hello. You'll even see him in front of the house if you look up the Mozzones' address on Google Earth.
“People know Winston well before they would ever know us,” Mazzone said.
Winston likes to greet his fans from behind the fence in his front yard, but he’s also been known to wander. Mazzone likes to let his pig graze in the open grass beside their home. He used to be able to let him graze alone, but not anymore.
“He would wander over there or he wanders to our next-door neighbor’s barn,” Mazzone explained. “And then he started crossing the roads.”
The family’s home is right at the busy intersection of Niwot Road and N. 73rd Street. Mazzone is worried about Winston getting hurt.
“We need to build a fence between the road and the property here so that way [Winston} can freely roam and graze at his heart’s content,” he said.
It was Mazzone’s wife, Elizabeth, who came up with the idea to ask Winston’s fans for help.
“She started the GoFundMe page with a $1000 goal and that was on Monday morning, and by Monday evening, she’d already hit the goal and then some,” Mazzone said.
Mazzone said an excavation company even offered to help dig holes for the new fence.
“We’re just overwhelmed with the amount of attention and love that’s being shown to Winston,” he said.
Mazzone said he’d budgeted about $1,000 to build the new fence. As of Thursday evening, more than $2,700 had been raised on Winston’s GoFundMe page.
“It says a lot about the people here in Niwot and Longmont and the people that just ride by or drive by,” Mazzone said.
The family will donate the remaining money not used for the fence to the Pig-A-Sus Homestead Sanctuary where they picked up Winston seven years ago.
“It just warms our hearts with this outpouring,” Mazzone said.
Winston’s fans and neighbors are welcome to join his family as they build the new fence in a couple weeks.
