US man calls police to report a pig 'following' him home

When police in Ohio received a call from a man claiming to be stalked by a pig in the early hours of Saturday morning, they naturally assumed he was inebriated.

In fact, the police arrived to find that the man was "very sober" - and really was being followed by a persistent pig.

Police confessed the man was not walking from the bar named "Train Station" in Elyria, Ohio, but rather from the city's train station.

"(We) responded to the obviously drunk guy walking home from the bar at 5:26 in the morning," North Ridgeville police department wrote on Facebook. 

The unnamed "victim" was indeed being followed by the farm animal and did not know what to do, officers said.

An officer was able to "wrangle" the pig into the back of his police car, even managing to get a mugshot of the culprit on the back seat.

It was then taken to the police department's dog kennels before being returned to its rightful owner on Sunday morning.

"We will mention the irony of the pig in a police car now so that anyone that thinks they're funny is actually unoriginal and trying too hard," the police quipped.

The unusual incident came two years after North Ridgeville officers were forced to capture a kangaroo – named Foster – that had escaped its pen.

Dealing with kangaroos is not on the police academy curriculum, the department joked at the time.