Christopher Vane fights back tears whenever he recalls something his mother, Ursula, used to say in her final years on Earth: “When I die, I’m going to have a barn up in heaven and I’m going to have all the animals and they’re going to stay with me.”

Sadly, Ursula died about six months before her son opened a no-kill sanctuary for farm animals — which he named Little Bear Sanctuary in her honor. (Ursula means “little bear” in Latin.)

“She was my biggest supporter,” Vane, 58, told TODAY. “She taught me compassion. She always loved animals. I know she’s looking down on us.”

Since its inception in 2017, Little Bear Sanctuary has rescued more than 150 animals, often from hoarding situations, and is currently home to 74 pigs (soon to be 75) and 29 sheep, plus other species like cows, chickens, goats and a 15-year-old tortoise named Keisha. The no-kill, no-cage sanctuary is a place where abused animals and those rescued from slaughter can live out their lives in peace.

Five rescue dogs love running around and visiting the other residents, like two donkeys, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, or Shrek and Fiona the pigs — or Shrek the goat.

There’s even an odd couple: two bonded pigs named Casper, a 1,000-pound Yorkshire pig, and Elvis, a svelte 200-pound potbellied pig.

While Vane insists he doesn’t have a favorite animal, he does have a “fondness” for a 300-pound pig named Willy, the sanctuary’s first rescue.

Many people buy pigs as pets but then surrender them when they get “too big.” Before that happened to Willy, his owner taught him to sit like a dog for treats. When other pigs joined Little Bear Sanctuary, Willy taught them to sit, too.

“Two weeks later they were all sitting for their treat,” he recalled. “I’ve heard that pigs teach each other stuff, but to see that in real life was pretty amazing. It just kind of cements their intelligence.”

Vane wishes more people knew how intelligent pigs are, and that they are meant to be big. Unscrupulous breeders purposely malnourish pigs and market them as “miniature” — selling them before they’ve reached maturity and their full weight. A few of Vane’s rescued pigs remained small from chronic malnourishment before rescue and suffered bone defects as a result