A baby pig left in a Tim Hortons washroom in Ridgetown, Ont., was returned unharmed to its owner late Thursday.

An employee called police at 10:30 p.m. after a customer found the pig in the restaurant's washroom.

The pig was "not distraught," the employee told police, and the customer held the animal until police arrived.

A baby pig found in the washroom of a Tim Hortons restaurant, like the one pictured above, late Thursday night in Ridgetown, Ont., has been returned safely to its owner. (Tim Hortons)

Police quickly called officials at the University of Guelph's Ridgetown campus, located down the street from the restaurant, to see if the pig might belong to the agriculture school.

Dr. Paul Luimes, a swine specialist at the school, was awoken at midnight by a phone call from campus security.

Luimes told CBC News he rushed to the Tim Hortons, where he found the pig, now stored in a box, "getting rambunctious," he said.

He checked the pig's ears for tattoos, which the school uses to tag its research pigs. Finding none, he left the restaurant to get feed for the animal. By the time he returned, the police had transported the pig via cruiser to the campus.

There, "we took the pig, set it up in a separate barn and gave it food for the night," Luimes said.

Not sure if it was a prank: officer

The pig's owner, an 18-year-old agriculture student at the university, recovered his pig Friday morning, Luimes said.

"I'm not sure if it was a prank or he legitimately left the pig inside and forgot about it," Const. Michael Pearce, of the Chatham-Kent Police Service, told CBC News.

The Tim Hortons employee told police she had seen a man enter the washroom with something in his arms, but leave with his arms empty, Pearce said.

Restaurant employees "completely scrubbed the restaurant and floors with sanitizing solutions and then threw out all the cleaning equipment," David Morelli, the director public affairs for Tim Hortons Inc., told CBC News.

"I guess we're lucky we added a section to our health and safety manual for when someone leaves a pig in your washroom," Morelli said.