It didn’t go to the market, and it didn’t stay home. So deputies with Limestone County Sheriff’s Office spent Tuesday helping a lost pig go “wee wee wee” all the way home.

Deputies with the LCSO animal control unit picked up a wayward pig on Capshaw Road around noon Tuesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, the pig’s owner had yet to be found.

Public Information Officer Stephen Young said LCSO took to social media to look for the owner of the lost creature after call lists kept by the department failed to reveal the animal’s owner.

“Most of our success locating owners comes by social media,” Young said. “Facebook is popular, and people will tag their friends. We go through our call lists for certain areas first before putting them on social media, so this happens more frequently than what you see.”

Young said deputies with LCSO handle calls involving animals quite frequently, estimating an average of at least one a month. He said cows out are the most common event, but LCSO has covered potbellied pigs, horses, ponies and even a herd of miniature goats on the lam recently.

“We have an animal control unit specifically for those type of calls,” Young said. “We have an animal control investigator who covers animal cruelty claims, and we have two others who work in the field picking up strays and delivering traps.”

Young said strays are handed over to the local animal shelter, but pickups like Tuesday’s lost pig are housed at the Limestone Sheriff’s Rodeo Arena until the owner is found. He said there are several pens at the arena where the animals are cared for until they can be reunited with their families.

Not all animal calls involve stray pets, however. Young said he himself once covered a call where a woman had a cottonmouth loose in her living room.

“We didn’t know where it was,” he said. “I didn’t have the proper tools to catch it, so I called someone in Elkmont who did.”

Since reporting roaming animals is generally a nonemergency call, Young said anyone needing to document a loose creature in the county should call LCSO at 256-232-0111.