Sanctuary Soulmates
Clementine and Winston were featured on a Picturing Pigs billboard in Sampson County in July and August, 2026.
Winston and Clementine are best friends who beat the odds
Photos by Shannon Johnstone, Camden Watts Roessler, Teri Saylor and Jeanine Wittlinger
Love blossomed on a lush, green hillside in southwest Virginia, when two piglets who defied the odds found a safe refuge – and each other – just when they needed it the most.
Winston and Clementine were two lucky piglets that made a soft landing at Gentle Acres Animal Haven in Fairfield, Virginia, nestled right in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley, where the landscape offers soothing views in soft blues and greens.
Jeanine Wittlinger cares for Clementine and the other animals at Gentle Acres and works hard to keep them comfortable
Jeanine Wittlinger launched the sanctuary in 2020 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. She cares for over 70 animals that call Gentle Acres home.
(*See note below for information on factory farmed pigs)
Winston enjoys a refreshing dip in his pool and a beautiful view of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley at Gentle Acres.
Winston
Winston was Jeanine’s first pig. He was riding in a transport truck, likely on his way to a finishing farm in West Virginia on a hot summer day in 2023. He jumped off the truck which was going down Interstate 78 likely at 70 miles per hour, Jeanine remembers.
“A trucker saw him hit the pavement headfirst and he stopped to help,” Jeanine says. “The piglet began having a seizure, so the trucker took him to a local rescue where he received emergency care.”
He was about three months old and weighed 24 pounds when he arrived at Gentle Acres. Jeanine named him Winston, after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Within 24 hours, Winston stopped eating, Jeanine recalls. She raced with him to the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech, about an hour’s drive.
“The medical team gave him some Cheez Whiz and cat food, and he started eating,” she says. “I remember thinking to myself that I had to drive all the way to Virginia Tech for Cheez Whiz.”
But that’s what rescue organizations do for their animals.
Pigs are highly social herd animals that are healthier and happier when they live with their own species.
Jeanine knew Winston needed a friend.
Baby Clementine.
Clementine
One day, Jeanine learned of a tiny piglet that a motorist had found at a truck stop in North Carolina and had taken to a county animal shelter. The female piglet weighed just three pounds.
The Blind Spot Animal Sanctuary (BSAS) in Rougemont, N.C. stepped in to rescue her. BSAS agreed to support the piglet, named Lucy after the comedian Lucille Ball.
A few days after her rescue, the piglet stopped eating enough and her breathing had become labored, says Nicole Heath, a volunteer who has her own small herd of pigs.
“I put her in my car and took her all the way to the University of Tennessee Vet School in Knoxville,” Nicole says.
That’s nearly 350 miles from Rougemont. The trip took over five hours.
“She laid on my lap in the car the whole time as I drove her there,” Nicole says.
When Lucy was well enough to come home, Picturing Pigs Co-Founder Shannon Johnstone made the journey to pick her up and delivered her back to Nicole.
“I remember holding her and she was cuddled up in my arms,” Nicole says. “She would squeal and cry whenever anyone else picked her up, but as soon as I held her, she stopped crying.”
By the time Nicole transported Lucy to Gentle Acres, the piglet had grown to four pounds and had the attitude of a diva.
“When Nicole walked in with the piglet, wrapped in a swaddling cloth, I was just stunned,” Jeanine says. “She was as small as the stuffed animal I bought for her to sleep with in a pen I had set up in a corner of my bedroom.”
She immediately ruled the house, Jeanine recalls.
“The piglet scared the cats and walked around like she owned the place,” Jeanine says. “My cat, Penny, watched her from behind the trash can as she walked right up to the dogs without a care.”
In the barn she made friends with Sabrina the cow, and took charge of the entire barnyard.
Jeanine renamed her Clementine, after Winston Churchill’s wife and in honor of the Churchills’ legendary love story which spanned 56 years.
Winston (in the tub) and Clementine enjoy a mud bath together at Gentle Acres
At Gentle Acres, Winston and Clementine have settled into a comfortable relationship and do everything together.
Pigs typically weigh about 20 pounds when they go to finishing farms and Clementine was just a fraction of that weight.
“She was only four pounds when she arrived here at Gentle Acres and she wasn’t weaned,” Jeanine says.
Today, Clementine is a Rubenesque pig goddess. She and Winston, both three years old, are almost fully grown, living far beyond the life expectancy of pigs on industrial farms. She’s maintained both her beauty and her attitude.
“I just adore Clementine,” Jeanine says. “She’s still the prettiest pig I’ve ever seen, with the prettiest eyes and the prettiest face.”
She is still naughty and has been a bad influence on Winston, who has a mind of his own too, Jeanine says.
Just like their namesakes, their love is real.
“Winston and Clementine are best friends,” Jeanine says. “I can’t separate the two of them.”
Clementine (left) and Winston were little piglets when they were rescued three years ago. Today they live together at beautiful Gentle Acres Animal Haven in Fairfield VA. They were featured on a Picturing Pigs billboard in Sampson County, NC in July and August 2026 (photo by Shannon Johnstone).
*Note[1] : When pigs are born on factory farms in North Carolina, their fate is sealed. They enter a highly controlled industrial system where mother pigs are typically confined to narrow farrowing crates where they give birth. At about three weeks old, piglets are taken from their mothers, and transferred to grower barns and then finishing farms until they are the right size for slaughter. Their short lives end when they are about six months old and weigh on average 250 pounds, Mother pigs continue to breed more piglets until they are slaughtered too.
North Carolina is home to approximately 2,000 permitted concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which house an estimated 8.2 to 9 million pigs at any given time. It is also the site of Smithfield Foods' pork processing plant in Bladen County, the largest in the world, spanning roughly one million square feet. Thousands of pigs are transported to slaughter there every day.
Winston and Clementine are featured on a billboard on I-40 in Sampson County near exit 355. It’s visible to motorists heading west toward Raleigh, N.C. and will be on view from July through August 2026. The billboard is part of the Picturing Pigs art and advocacy project, showing pigs living their best lives. The billboards are on display in the area of North Carolina with the highest concentration of industrial pig farming.
Clockwise from top left: Baby Clementine meets Sabrina, a sweet cow at Gentle Acres; Shannon Johnstone and Clementine; Nicole Heath cuddles baby Clementine; grown-up Clementine seems to remember Shannon Johnstone a year after they met; teenage Clementine; Jeanine Wittlinger treats Winston to a refreshing shower.