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Date: 2024-02-11
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^button-HisBestFriendWasa250-PoundWarthogNSave
 
# His Best Friend Was a 250-Pound Warthog. One Day, It Decided to Kill Him.
By the age of thirty, a time when most people are just beginning to think about their mortality, Austin Riley had already conquered his fear of death. Heâd come exceedingly close to dying on multiple occasions, including a few months before his first birthday, when doctors discovered a golf ballâsize tumor growing inside his infant skull. He would go on to spend much of his childhood in and out of hospitals, enduring high-risk brain surgeries and grueling recoveries. Then, in his mid-twenties, he was nearly killed by a brain hemorrhage that arrived one night without warning, unleashing the worst pain heâd ever felt. He emerged from that experience reborn, feeling lucky to be alive and convinced that his life had been spared by God.
So as he sat in a pool of his own blood on a beautiful October evening in 2022, he couldnât help but acknowledge the morbid absurdity of his current predicament. Heâd spent decades conquering brain injuries only to be killed while doing mundane chores on his familyâs 130-acre Hill Country ranch in Boerne. âAfter all Iâd been through,â he said, âI just couldnât believe that this was how it was going to end.â
As he slumped against a fence and his mangled body began to shut down, Austinâs mind went into overdrive. He thought about his girlfriend, Kennedy, whom heâd never get a chance to marry, and the children heâd never be able to raise. He thought about how much he loved his parents and how badly he wished he could thank them for the life theyâd provided. He thought about the land before him, a valley accentuated by crimson and amber foliage that seemed to glitter in the evening light, and realized it had never seemed more beautiful than it did in that moment.
But mostly, he thought about the animal that had just used its razor-sharp, seven-inch tusks to stab him at least fifteen times. The attack had shredded his lower body and filled his boots with blood, and then left gaping holes in his torso and neck. Had any other animal been responsible, Austin wouldâve considered it a random attack. But this was a pet heâd trusted more than any other: his lovable, five-year-old warthog, Waylon.
It wasnât just an attack, as far as Austin was concerned, but a murderous act of betrayal, one that shattered everything he thought he knew about the deep bond between man and pig. âFor years, that animal trusted me everyday and I trusted him,â Austin said. âI put blood, sweat, and tears into his life, and he decided to kill me.â
---
**Austin, who spends** most days on his own, working with his hands, feels like a throwback from another era. Ruggedly handsome, with a five-oâclock shadow and head full of unkempt brown hair, and strutting confidently in beaten-up boots and Wrangler jeans, he looks like he couldâve stepped out of a seventies Marlboro ad. Though heâs partially paralyzed on his left side from a botched brain surgery decades earlier, heâs âfarm-boy strong.â
When it comes to animals, a softer side emerges. In his polite Texas twang, the 32-year-old talks lovingly about caring for an ostrich or a warthog as matter-of-factly as most people talk about feeding a dog or a cat. He has a wide circle of human friends but an even wider circle of relationships with animals, many of whom he addresses with human names such as Elmer and Susan. âPeople are so mean to each other for no reason, but animals, theyâve always felt peaceful to me,â he told me last month as he fixed a fence on the edge of his familyâs ranch, keeping one eye on an anxious herd of kudu upset by the presence of his all-terrain vehicle. âAnd unlike people, they almost always give back what you put into them.â
Animals have been a part of Austinâs life for as long as he can remember. Because of the threat of a seizure stemming from a traumatic brain injury, Austin needed nearly constant supervision growing up. He wasnât allowed to play organized sports, nor could he roughhouse at the swimming pool each summer or attend sleepovers at friendâs homes. Without regular access to a normal social life, he became socially withdrawn and isolated. He did have access to something that other children lacked, however: exotic animals. While other kids had dogs and cats, Austin had a pet ostrich, a white-tail and a fallow deer, hogs, a mastiff, a Lab, and a dachshundâall of whom followed the little boy around the ranch.
Austinâs father, Shane, spent much of his career working in oil and gas when Austin was young, but his passion was for his ranch, which he stocked with unusual animals from faraway places. After Austin was born, Shane turned his hobby into a business, breeding and selling exotic animals, typically to buyers in Texas. After Austinâs second brain surgery, his parents decided to relocate to their Hill Country homestead full time.
âHe was never inside and didnât like to play video games,â Gail Riley, Austinâs mother, recently recalled. âHe wanted to be outside with the animals, hanging out, playing hide-and-seek, learning how to feed and care for them. Austin loved the animals and the animals always seemed to love him.â
But there was one animal that Austin poured more of himself into than any other: Waylon. Their bond formed on a cold December night in 2017, seconds after the tiny warthog took its first breath. The pigletâs mother had died in labor, but Austin immediately assumed her place, cradling the hamster-size infant in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other. He moved the animal into his parentsâ home, creating a makeshift nursery out of a plastic container, hay, and baby blankets. Eventually, as the weather outside warmed, Austin built the warthog a small wooden house beside his parentsâ home, where the pig was able to spend his days gaining strength and roughhousing with the familyâs bulldog. Austin decided to name the rambunctious warthog as an homage to another unruly figure, outlaw country legend Waylon Jennings.
Once fully grown, Waylon weighed more than an average NFL linebacker and had four sharpened tusks that were as long as seven inches.Courtesy of the Riley family
Always eager for his ownerâs company, Waylon enjoyed following Austin around the family ranch and falling asleep on his chest after feedings. He loved red apples, rough belly scratches, and tender massages on his hardened, bony snout. Before long, the pig and the brawny farm boy were inseparable. âI just kinda became his parent, his dad, really,â Austin said. âEarly on, Iâd take him with me through the drive-through at Whataburger, and heâd sit in the front seat, happy as can be.â
Waylon soon grew to be âtwo hundred fifty pounds of pure protein,â as Austin likes to sayâmore than an average-sized NFL linebacker. By then, Austin had moved him to a large pen a few hundred yards away from the family home. On particularly beautiful days, he liked to lie on the ground in the enclosure, listening to sports radio and watching the clouds pass by. Inevitably, Waylon would lie down beside him, gingerly resting his enormous, wart-covered head on Austinâs thigh. They could remain that way for five or six hours at a time.
Pigs, as any experienced livestock handler will tell you, are often the most intelligent animal on a ranch, and Waylon was no exception. He could follow basic commands and knew his own name. When Austin wasnât paying attention, he enjoyed digging his snout into his ownerâs back pocket and grabbing hold of a pair of pliers that Austin always carried with him. Instead of giving the tool back, Waylon would run to the other side of the pen and play keep-away for as long as Austin would chase after him. âHe loved being a little pain in the butt,â Riley recalled. âBut in the end, we had an understanding, and he never showed one sign of aggression.â
---
**The notion that** a warthog could be a friendly sidekick can be traced to Pumbaa, the lovable *Lion King* character known for popularizing the phrase âhakuna matata,â a Swahili expression meaning âno worries.â On the ruthless African savanna, however, where warthogs are native, they exist in an almost perpetual state of worry. Their wariness, and quick trigger, has helped to turn them into formidable opponents for some of the worldâs most fearsome predators.
Adult warthogs can reach speeds of greater than thirty miles per hour. Even when caught by a lion or leopard, warthogs prove formidable opponents, with their knifelike lower tusks protruding from muscular jaws like blades on a scythed chariot. They are known for being intelligent and resourceful. Warthogs that live near human hunters adjust their behavior accordingly, trading their daytime foraging schedule for one that takes place at night. Their combination of ruggedness and adaptability partly explains why, unlike so many other African species, warthogs are not endangered.
Nine thousand miles away, on ranches in Central and South Texas, theyâre becoming more popular as pets and as hunting targets. Like their European cousin the feral hog, they are [prized by hunters](https://www.texashuntlodge.com/hunting-packages/warthog-hunts) for their delectable meat and the challenge involved in acquiring it. For individual owners, meanwhile, they are low-maintenance exotic pets. For both groups, part of the animalsâ enduring appeal is that, despite their menacing appearance and deadly hardware, they typically display limited aggression toward humans. Many have escaped captivity and begun to breed in the wild.
Ironically, experts say, a reputation for docility can be the very quality that makes a particular animal dangerous. Their behavior isnât easy to predict, says Tina Cloutier Barbour, associate vice president of animal care and welfare at the Dallas Zoo, which has four African warthogs in its [Giants of the Savanna](https://clrdesign.com/project/dallas-zoo-giants-of-the-savanna/) exhibit. Unlike domestic animals, which have been bred for generations to exhibit behaviors that humans deem favorable, wild animals are capable of dramatic shifts in behavior, even when they appear tame. In the Dallas Zoo, personnel never encounter the beasts unguarded, exercising âprotective contact,â a form of interaction that ensures there is always a physical barrier, such as wire mesh, between human and animal, Cloutier Barbour said.
Itâs tempting to anthropomorphize wild animals, she added, to think that a long-standing bond between an animal and a human has the power to override deeply held instincts, but thatâs wishful thinking. âWarthogs arenât predators so they donât necessarily seek out fights, but if they do feel threatened theyâll use their speed and their agility and their tusks to defend themselves quite spectacularly,â Cloutier Barbour said.
Low to the ground and agile, the animal is capable of thrashing its head back and forth at a rate that can be hard for the human eye to register. Adding to their terror is the reality that a warthog stab wound isnât a clean form of penetrative trauma. The tusksâ hooked design ensures they cause even more damage coming out than they do going in.
Asked what sheâd tell someone planning to add a warthog to a private collection, Cloutier Barbour offered a simple piece of advice: âDonât do it.â
---
**After particularly brutal** days at the ranch, whether heâs laboring through freezing weather or has spent hours corralling an unruly animal, Austin likes to sum up his struggle with a single, semiplayful expression: âThings got western.â Austin says he reserves the termâa rhetorical tribute to the rugged cowboy culture that so many rural Texans still embraceâfor moments when âsâ hits the fan.â
The most âwesternâ five minutes in his life began without much warning. Waylon had appeared to be his typical friendly self one October evening at dinner. He greeted Austin at the front gate, happily accepted some back scratches, and trotted beside him as the two walked to a nearby feeding trough. About twenty minutes after heâd arrived, Austin had just finished feeding Daisy, a pot-bellied pig heâs owned since she was a piglet, in an adjacent pen. He re-entered the warthog enclosure and was walking toward his all-terrain vehicle, parked at the entrance of the pen.
Suddenly, his right leg crumpled behind him and he found himself tumbling forward, landing some fifteen feet away. As he gathered his bearings, Waylonâs bulky, gray head emerged from a swirling cloud of dust near his feet. Before Austin could stand up and run, Waylon thrust his face between the rancherâs lower legs and began violently swinging his tusks back and forth. One tusk stabbed Austin twice in the right calf and another stabbed him once in the left calf. His right leg was gashed from the knee to his upper thigh, an injury so wide Austin was later able to put his hand inside it. He remembers the sensation of cool air hitting warm muscle and the realization that blood was pouring out of his jeans and filling his boots.
He knew his parents were almost certainly eating dinner indoors a quarter mile away and nearby ranchers were likely too far away to hear his cries. He screamed anyway.
For a split second, Austin thought the entire incident might come to an abrupt end, that Waylon had merely decided to deliver a forceful messageââThis is my pen and Iâm the man around here now!ââin the only way he knew how. But a momentary glimpse of the warthogâs narrowed, rage-filled eyes dispelled that notion. As he attempted to scoot backwards, Austin realized Waylon wasnât stopping. The warthog was barreling forward, attempting to pin his owner to the ground. âHe was in murder mode,â Austin said.
Before Austin could fight back, Waylon had hooked his owner four more times in the upper left leg and genitals. Several more stab wounds to his upper right leg followed in rapid succession. Reflexively, Austin attempted to gouge out the warthogâs eyes, but was blocked by his bony facial armor. Instinctively, Austin grabbed onto Waylonâs tusks, slicing open his wrist. After three more gashes in his abdomen, Austin attempted to put Waylon in a headlock. But the animal jerked upward, plunging his tusk into Austinâs voice box, leaving a quarter-size hole in his neck from which a piece of an artery dangled like a grisly necklace. The blow knocked him onto his back, leaving his entire body exposed to the rampaging boar. âAt that point, I just knew I couldnât let him hit my head or get on top of me,â Austin said. âThatâs what I kept thinking.â
Somehow, when he needed it most, Austin caught a break. Lying on his back and bleeding out, he might have looked dead to Waylon. The warthog relented, momentarily. Pumped full of adrenaline, Austin staggered to his feet and clambered halfway up an eight-foot fence using a foothold. It would take five tries to swing his body over the top. Once outside the pen, Austin made a disheartening discovery: his phone had fallen out of his back pocket during the attack. Afraid heâd lose consciousness soon, and with no other route to safety, Austin realized survival depended upon him reentering the pit with the beast and crossing twenty feet of blood-soaked dirt to retrieve his phone and call for help, all without Waylon noticing. âIâve been through a lot of physical trauma in my life and Iâve learned that Iâm not the kind of person who gives up without fighting,â Austin said. âKill me, fineâbut Iâm gonna fight.â
Once Waylon had trotted a little ways in the other direction, Austin seized his opportunity. After climbing down the fence, he dragged himself over to his phone and then stumbled to a nearby gate. Steadying his legs and trying not to panic, he struggled to open two latches as Waylon circled back around and started charging. Slipping past with moments to spare, Austin collapsed on the ground as the warthog lunged at him from the other side of the fence, threatening to break through. âHe almost looked like he was possessed,â Austin recalled. âLike heâd turned evil.â
Austin knew his survival was far from assured. His service rarely worked near the back of Waylonâs pen, but on this day, he was shocked to find a single bar of coverage. For Austin, it felt like a miracle. When his dad picked up the phone moments later, Austin told him he was âbleeding out.â Shane knew his son wasnât joking or being dramatic. Like most ranchers who work closely with livestock, Austin had been bitten, poked, and cut too many times to count. Shane knew his sonâwho preferred to wrap a paper towel and some electrical tape around a wound and then go about his businessâwas not one to fuss over injuries. Shane told Austin to sit tight.
Before Austin hung up the phone, he told his parents how much he loved them. Theyâd always been there for him, he said, and his rapidly approaching demise wasnât their fault. He could hear his motherâs screams from inside the family home a quarter mile away, followed by the screech of his fatherâs Suburban peeling out of the driveway. If he could remain conscious a little bit longer, he told himself, he might be able to say goodbye to both of them in person.
By the time he made it to his son, Shane Riley felt like heâd walked into a gruesome crime scene. Shaneâs first instinct was to push the tissue back inside Austinâs body, as if trying to put his son back together. âIt was horrible,â Shane said. âI just knew I needed to get him to the hospital as soon as possible.â
As Shane got him into his SUV, Austin was beginning to lose feeling in his hands and feet, a sign that his body was going into shock. Emergency responders had instructed the Rileys to wait for their arrival, but Shane refused. After ramming open the front fence with his vehicle, he raced toward Interstate 10 as Gail followed in a second car behind them. At a rendezvous point, paramedics informed the Rileys that they wouldnât be able to ride in the ambulance with their son. His condition was too serious. They told him they loved him and urged him to keep fighting.
Gail dropped to her knees in the middle of the street, overcome by the realization that she might never see her son alive again. The local sheriff helped her out of the road, worried sheâd be hit by a vehicle.
Shane knew Austin had already cheated death multiple times in his young life. He prayed to God, asking for another miracle. âAustin is special,â he said. âAnd everyone who knows Austin knows how tough he is.â
Austin outside the pen on his familyâs ranch in Boerne in December 2023, the same enclosure where he was viciously attacked by his pet warthog, Waylon.Peter Holley
---
**Doctors would later** tell the Riley family that, by the time Austin reached University Hospital in San Antonio, thirty minutes away, heâd lost nearly half his blood; any more, they assured relatives, and he wouldâve died. Even more shocking was the fact that Waylonâs tusks came within millimeters of severing multiple arteries. It would take doctors ten surgeries to keep Austin alive. Though the official stabbing count stands at fifteen, neither Austin nor his doctors could be entirely sure of exactly how many times Waylon speared his owner. Some wounds were just too messy to be certain.
Thereâs no formula for surviving a horrific animal attack. Thereâs even less of a blueprint for getting over an attack in which the victim cared deeply about the attacker. Austin has faced multiple recoveries in his lifetimeâbut this one has been the hardest. For months after the attack, as Austin recovered from his injuries by working around the ranch, which is still home to about seventy exotic animals, he wouldnât drive past Waylonâs old pen in his all-terrain vehicle, much less set foot inside it. For an even longer period, he wouldnât bring up warthogs in conversation and avoided images of the animals online. âStill to this day, when I close my eyes, I can see his face covered in my blood,â he said. âI canât forget his eyes, the way they were locked in to kill.â
Extensive therapy has helped Austin work through traumatic memories and flashbacks that plagued him for the first year after the attack. A part of him now feels grateful for what happened. He frequently thanks God that Waylon attacked him instead of one of his family members. He credits the attack with bringing him closer to his then girlfriend of three months, Kennedy, whom he hopes to someday marry. He is also grateful that he didnât stop fighting, not just because he gave himself another shot at life, but becauseâin a twisted Texas warrior sort of wayâhe survived an encounter with an animal that is built to battle lions. How many individuals can say that?
But Austin also knows his glory has come at a terrible cost. His mother is tormented by visions of her son being gored to death. His father blames himself for introducing his son to warthogs years earlier. âWe made a mistake and almost paid dearly for it,â Shane told me on a recent visit to the ranch, holding back tears.
The day after the attack, Austinâs parents asked a family friend to execute Waylon. After the killing, Waylonâs head was cut off and sent to a lab so he could be tested for rabies. The results came back negative. His slaughter was partly an act of revenge, but also an acknowledgment that the warthog could never be allowed around humans ever again. Shane and Gail deleted all photos of the animal from their phones. Unwilling to be in the presence of a warthog ever again, Austin had Waylonâs pen mate, Peaches, relocated to another ranch.
Recently, Austin began walking through the warthogsâ former pen multiple times each day to feed Daisy, the pot-bellied pig. During our last meeting, he showed me his phone, where heâs saved hundreds of images and videos of Waylon. He told me it had been a while, but he had finally found himself able to look at some of them again.
Gradually, feelings of shock and betrayal are being replaced by acceptance and understanding, he explained. As we looked at sweet-natured pictures of the pig and his owner trading nuzzles and belly scratches, I asked Austin if he thinks Waylon regretted attacking him before he was killed. He went silent for a few seconds, mulling over my question before responding. âI donât think it was Waylon who attacked me,â he said. âI was attacked by a warthog.â
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