Flip Side—Clayton and Eugene

As told by Cindy Holm, Co-Owner of Flip Side Sanctuary, Tabor City, N.C.

My husband, Gregg and I started Flip Side in California in 2015.

Whenever there was a wildfire in California, people would say, this is the worst fire in history. And every year, when more fires blazed, they would say that again. So, we knew the fires were getting worse and worse.

During some of these fires, we would have ashes coming down onto our property, and we would try to hose everything down. I remember when a page from a book came down, and it was so clear that you could still read the words. It got to the point where we thought something bad was going to happen to us and all our animals.

Clayton (left) and Eugene (right).

In 2016 our pigs, Clayton and Eugene, were victims of the Clayton fires in California. The place where they were kept had wooden fences, and they just burned down. Clayton and Eugene had to run through the flames to escape and roamed the streets for weeks trying to avoid the fires. They got lucky and weren’t severely burned.

The county animal control officers eventually trapped them and housed them in the shelter until they couldn’t keep them there anymore. There wasn’t enough space because of all the animals they were rescuing from the fires.

The sheriff had a chicken coop and they decided to keep Clayton and Eugene there. The woman that worked at the shelter contacted us to ask if we could take them. And when we went up there to get them, we found a tiny coop just full of chickens -- and Clayton and Eugene.

The folks at the sheriff’s department said Clayton and Eugene couldn’t stay there anymore because they were killing the chickens. I mean, the pigs were crammed in there. They are big pigs, and it was a sad situation with them being in the chicken coop. The sheriff did contact the people that originally owned the Clayton and Eugene, but they had lost everything and couldn’t take them back. So we got them out of there.

When we rescued Clayton and Eugene, they were in bad shape and really skittish. Now, they’re pretty friendly with us, but it took a long time for them to build trust and feel comfortable getting belly rubs.

In 2018, we began the process of moving the sanctuary 3,000 miles across the country to a safer environment in North Carolina. We completed the move in 2019 and today, we own 16 acres here.