SPRINGBORO, Ohio — After buying a unique household pet, one couple is now in a fight with their Home Owner's Association to get to keep her.

What You Need To Know

  • A woman and her husband bought a Vietnamese pot belly pig as a house pet

  • The woman wanted it because she grew up with one in Vietnam

  • The couple is now in a fight with their HOA to keep the pig

Katherine Price has a unique household pet, a two-year-old Vietnamese pot belly pig named Arnold Ziffel. Price had another pig just like Arnold while growing up in Vietnam.

“My mom raised a lot of other animals for food, but specifically the Vietnamese pot belly pig is our pet,” said Price.

After moving into their new home in 2018, Price asked her husband, Richard, if they could buy one.

“The answer is maybe, and then I said okay,” she said. “Then he went there and did research on the HOA to see if everything is okay and he came out and he said ‘certainly, I think we could.’”

He eventually agreed to it as long as she promised to name her Arnold Ziffel after the pig in the show Green Acres.

“I don’t care about the name as long as I have my pet same as when I was little because I really miss that. It’s really difficult when you’re that age to part from your own pet,” she said.

Life with Arnold was going well until one day she received a letter from her housing association about being sued. The HOA claimed Arnold is considered livestock and keeping her would be breaking the rules.

“They said that with Arnold in their high-end property, that the house will actually go down, in their own opinion,” she said. “But there’s no proof.”

Price said she was hurt when she found the letter. She considers Arnold as a household pet and she made sure to do her research before buying her.

“First I was scared,” she said. “I was like, why are you suing me over my own pet? So I came to my husband and my husband said clearly we didn’t break any rules. We did what the CCR said before we had Arnold.”

The Prices have since gone to court to fight the allegation, and they too have even sued the HOA’s attorney Scott Oxley for harassment.

“The fight is not over, because Arnold is here to stay and nobody can change that,” she said. “Even if I go to whatever court they send me to, I will go there and fight.”

When asked about the lawsuit, Oxley said he personally believes the Price’s accusations are false and were said to damage him.