Menagerie: Just between us species.

One night, when my husband Jason and I were in the earliest stages of our courtship — which, since we lived in different states, took place over Skype — we found ourselves talking about potbelly pigs. We’d succumbed to the pastime of browsing cute animal photos, and together, on our respective screens, ended up looking at pig pictures. When I joked about getting one of our own, Jason said, “We could name him Señor Bacon.”

It was as if he’d flipped a pig-switch I hadn’t known existed in my brain.

“I hope you know you just made this a real thing,” I said.

After living with the fantasy pig for months, the desire for the real one grew.

We laughed. Jason was kidding and I figured I probably was, too.

A few months later, I moved with my real-life pet — a pug named Baxter — from Brooklyn to Santa Cruz, Calif., to live with Jason. But “Señor Bacon” began making ghostly appearances. “I saw his little hoof prints outside today,” Jason would say. Señor Bacon’s “disembodied pig spirit” brought surprise gifts: a straw giraffe I’d made an exaggerated display of admiration for at a furniture store, and pairs of Jason’s favorite socks, stuffed into his drawer to be discovered. Señor Bacon Day replaced Christmas — he was the one who delivered our presents.

And from there, almost without us noticing, it escalated. After living with the fantasy gifting-pig for months, the desire for the real one grew.

We began looking into breeders online, “just for fun.” They were far away in Missouri or Oklahoma, which was fine, because what did we think we would we be getting into anyway? Taking our fictional pig into the realm of reality could be disastrous. We knew there was no such thing as a mini-pig; he could very well grow to 500 pounds. Where would we put him? Would he and Baxter get along? I could never take in an animal and then get rid of him. If we went through with Señor Bacon, we would be entering a decade-or-longer commitment.

Eight months later, after we’d moved into a larger house and gotten married, we took Baxter to the dog beach on a Saturday. As we approached the steps leading to the beach, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw a woman walking a pig on a leash.

We reached the top of the staircase at the same time. I wasn’t delusional; this woman was, indeed, walking a potbelly pig. I petted her pig, whose bristly fur was gray and white, and bombarded her with questions.

Her pig, Oblio, was six months old and the same size as Baxter, who sniffed him curiously, a promising sign for the relationship of pig and pug. Oblio was learning to walk down stairs. He knew a trick, “spin around,” and rooted happily in the sand. Señor Bacon became more tangible. The woman gave me the number of a farmer named Wayne in Fresno who bred small potbellies. I hesitated for three more weeks, then sent a message.

Within days, Wayne replied and introduced us to his colleague Tyler, who lived in a town 45 minutes away. He had a new batch of piglets, three months old.

When Tyler brought the piglets to town so we could meet them, Jason and I were at a friend’s barbecue. Three little piglets showed up in a box at the barbecue. We took turns holding them. As I held the first piglet, he screeched like a pterodactyl, as though he was being slaughtered rather than cradled. (Maybe he smelled the barbecue?) Like his relative, Oblio, he was gray and white with pink stripes on his snout. Despite the screaming, I had a feeling he was “the one.”

“Is this Señor Bacon?” Jason asked.

“I think so, yes.”

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The piglet was still shrieking. I returned him to the box. Pigs don’t appreciate being picked up. As prey animals, the sensation of their hooves leaving the ground triggers the sense that they’re about to enter the jaws of a carnivorous beast. “You can train him out of it,” Tyler said.

Jason brought Señor Bacon home a few days later. We had a pig!

We’d prepared a place for him in the laundry room, with a dog bed, a baby gate, toys, food and water. It was amazing and terrifying. Now what?

Señor Bacon was terrified, too. For the first two weeks, he hid in his bed under blankets, emerging for meals before going back into hiding. The reality was much different from the imaginary pig spirit who left us presents.

“He doesn’t seem to like us,” I said.

“He’s just not used to us yet,” Jason said.

What if he didn’t get used to us? He was little and scared, and I was a little bit scared of him. I wasn’t sure how to interact. He was indifferent to the stuffed animals and toys and didn’t like being touched. I worried we’d made him depressed. What if Señor Bacon was an idea best relegated to the realm of imagination?

Baxter, curious about the new addition, sniffed and scratched at the laundry room door, but we kept her out as Señor Bacon got used to his environment, and slowly began introducing them while Baxter was leashed. They seemed to get along, until Baxter became territorial or jealous, especially about food, and nipped at his ears. We trained them to sit side by side and accept treats in turn. They made it through their rough patch; it would not be long before they were falling to sleep together on the couch.

As we figured out how to care for him, he began showing trust — nosing at our feet or rolling over to allow for a tummy rub. We learned that a pig’s love must be won.

Still, I was nervous. I joined potbelly pig groups on Facebook to ease my anxiety, and it worked. Thousands of members passionate about their pigs were gold mines of advice. They lived on farms and in apartments across the world. I found myself spending hours admiring tiny spotted Albert from England, big Cletus of Kentucky, and Hobey, who was briefly famous for being kicked off a US Airways flight.

Soon Señor Bacon had a ball pit to root around in for carrots, a puzzle game and his own cashmere blanket. We ordered a harness made especially for pig-bodies and took him for short walks. (The first question he got was, “Is that a Chihuahua?”) As we figured out how to care for him, he began showing trust — nosing at our feet or rolling over to allow for a tummy rub. We learned that a pig’s love must be won.

And it appeared we were winning; Señor Bacon ate carrots from our hands and woke us at 5 in the morning, squawking for breakfast. He taught himself to jump up on the couch, rooting on pillows, eventually snuggling up in my lap. He was approximating our initial imaginary-friend vision of him — a more grouchy, obstinate and stubborn version.

When I cooked, he entered the kitchen emitting his vacuum-cleaner grumbles, looking up at me expectantly with his humanlike brown eyes, eager for a bite of vegetables. He’s nature’s composting solution for all fruit and vegetable scraps except bell pepper tops, onions and basil, the few flavors he dislikes. During housebreaking, I gave him celery, carrots and his favorite, strawberries, for going outside.

Still, great lakes began to form on our kitchen floor as I prepared meals. That pigs are prolific urinators is one of the many things I did not yet know in those days before Señor Bacon morphed from pig spirit to actual pig — with a bladder large enough to produce Lake Erie. I tried to tell him he got it backward as I ushered him out, where he promptly resumed digging trenches in the yard with his nose. It took months to correct our miscommunication (urinating = treats!), but he finally got it, trotting out to the deck on his own to relieve himself.

On walks, Señor Bacon chomps acorns, devours bushels of clover, and draws a crowd. The questions are the same: “How big will he get?” (We aren’t sure but we’ll love him no matter what.) “Is he house trained?” (Mostly.) And my favorite: “What are your intentions for him?”

The euphemism never fails to amuse me.

He did, however, change my intentions for other pigs. After our first two months, we took Señor Bacon to Dr. Meyers, a farm veterinarian with a jovial bedside manner who worked out of the garage at his house. He gave Señor Bacon his shots and told us to bring him back when he was ready to get “fixed.”

How would we know when?

“You’ll know,” he said.

Within a month, Señor Bacon started mounting couches, chairs, and visitors’ legs, like a dog. Something we dubbed “the tentacle” emerged, spiraling the length of his belly and yielding a substance that smelled of old fish and garbage.

I called Dr. Meyers. “Señor Bacon has come of age,” I said.

In his garage, I got to observe the surgery.

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He made incisions and snipped out what resembled two oblong golf balls. Dr. Meyers clamped the veins and tied them off.

I hadn’t eaten meat in 16 years out of love for animals. But Jason ate it and I loved cooking for him; I’d made — and sampled — pork tacos and ragù.

My guilt worsened when Señor Bacon arrived, but seeing him splayed out on a table, hogtied and sliced open turned me back. My rational mind was aware that this was surgery, not slaughter. Even so, I stopped eating meat and persuaded Jason to give up pork in honor of our 30 (fortunately not 500) pounds of pterodactyl-screeching, shovel-nosing, vegetable-scrap chomping, Great-Lake-making, snuggly potbelly.

At night, he hops up on the couch to wedge into a lap or an armpit. He ditched his own bed for ours, taking flying leaps in and nosing us over to make room. At first, I protested. Yes, the dog slept there, but a pig in the bed was strange. Jason alluded to Bacon’s potential as a foot-warmer on chilly winter nights. As he burrowed under the blankets and we rested our feet against his warm body, the coziness was convincing.

The real Señor Bacon was even better than the one we’d imagined.

Liza Monroy is the author of “The Marriage Act,” a memoir, and “Mexican High,” a novel. She teaches writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.