Hush Hoggies Hush: Tom Johnson's Praying Pigs

Directed by Bill Ferris

Meet Tom Johnson and his praying pigs. "Been fooling with them hogs for 35 long years," Johnson says in the film as he rocks on the porch of his modest residence near Bentonia, Mississippi. "It's just an idea that I took up. It's a play thing. And it put me into something that I didn't get out of too easy and so soon." The pigs, taught to stand beside their brimming slop trough with heads bowed while Johnson prayed over their food, dug in with gusto when he finally released them to eat. Johnson died in 1980, but the four minute film is a lasting reminder of his special pig training talents.