Llama Training: What Every Llama Should Know
Rosana Hart
Llamas are very intelligent animals who can learn many things, and it is easy to train them. Every llama should know some basics:
1. To allow you to halter him quickly and easily.
2. To walk along with you when on a leash, keeping the leash loose.
3. To load into a vehicle.
4. To allow you to touch him all over his body, as you might do when combing out his wool, putting on a pack, or examining a wound.
Beyond the basics, people train llamas to do a variety of things. Perhaps most common is training to accept a pack so that the animal can carry a load. Llamas are sometimes trained to drive to cart. They can also be taught to "kush" which means to sit down; of course, if you train that, you also want to train the llama to get back up on command!
Noted llama trainer Bobra Goldsmith comments, "Llamas learn very quickly. Typically, if you are teaching a llama something new, he will understand it after just a few repetitions."
After I heard Bobra say that once, I thought I would test out her assertion by counting how many repetitions it did take before my llama Whiskers would willingly enter my VW van through the side door. I didn't have to count very far, just to five! Afterwards, he would always jump right in the van when we wanted to take him somewhere. Sometimes it was many months between outings, but he never forgot. In contrast, I have never succeeded in teaching any of my dogs something in only five trials.
Comparing llamas and dogs in another way is interesting. Llamas will learn more rapidly than dogs that walking with the leash loose is really the way to do it! This makes it a lot of fun to take a llama out hiking along backcountry trails. However, if horses come along, do be quick to yield the right of way. Move your llama a ways away from the trail so the horses will be less likely to spook. If they haven't encountered llamas before, they may be a bit afraid.
Bobra has developed a series of methods for training llamas. For example, for getting a llama to accept the halter easily, she uses a slow motion technique. Llamas like the calm and steady approach, and they learn to be haltered very easily with this method. Her training routines are also used, by herself and by many others, with alpacas.
While llamas are perhaps best trained while they are rather young (but not babies), Bobra has demonstrated that you can train a green adult llama as well. While in a perfect world every llama you acquire would be well trained, in fact many people just don't get around to much llama training. You can learn Bobra Goldsmith's training methods from a DVD which is available on the internet. People buy the DVD for this purpose, of course, but they also buy it when they are thinking about getting llamas and want to know what is involved. In any case, llama training can turn out to be a very enjoyable activity.
About the Author:
For more about expert llama trainer Bobra Goldsmith and her methods, visit this llama training page. Rosana Hart is the author of "Living with Llamas" and worked with Bobra to produce the DVD.
|
