s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

As Jim the Llama settles in he is slowly allowing me closer and closer. If you drive him into a catch pen it is really easy to get a hallter on him (well trained), but out in the field he like to keep a bit of running-room. When he first arrived the “safe” distance was about 10 meters. Get any closer and he would move away. Now it is down to about 3 meters, which I consider wonderful progress.

So yesterday afternoon I tried a little experiment. A bit of backstory is needed, though. Annika, the daughter of the previous owner (Dave) was the official owner of Trixie, the abandoned pony. We heard a tale of how when Trixie first arrived she was basically wild, so Annika would sit out in the paddock singing to her day after day to win her trust. I wanted to try that on our camelids.

After dinner it was bright and sunny, so I went out, lay down on the road in their current paddock (a no-poo zone, which is helpful), and started singing, humming and whistling. I soon discovered the whistling seemed to work them up, so I discontinued that. Jim came within about 1.5 meters to try and “sniff from a safe distance. Pointer hung back (no surprise there). Oak came up, stood by/over me for a few minutes, then he kushed down right next to me, his head over my body! And he just happily sat there. Fascinating. If the weather clears up (getting a bit of rain this morning, but the rest of the week is forcast to be wonderful) I will go out and try that again.