Llama Training: What is Involved?
If you have ever been around llamas, you will know that they learn very quickly and that their intelligence is remarkable. You can learn to train them, and it's important to teach llamas a few basic things that will make its life with people much easier:
1. To accept the halter.
2. To walk along with you when on a leash, keeping the leash loose.
3. To jump into a van, pickup, or trailer for transporting.
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!
Bobra Goldsmith, a pioneering llama trainer, observes, "You can teach a llama to do something after several repetitions. It often surprises people how quickly llamas learn."
As a result of hearing Bobra's comment, I counted the number of repetitions it took to accustom my llama Whiskers to the process of entering our VW van. It took five times, and then he had it. From then on, no matter how many months had passed between outings, as soon the van door opened, Whiskers was ready to go. I was impressed; I've never taught a dog any command in just five repeats.
While we're on the subject of dogs, something that llamas learn much more quickly than dogs is to walk on a loose leash. This makes hiking with them a pleasure, as you can just amble along a trail with them. Do be aware that if horses come along, you should step a good ways off the trail, and on the downhill side if there is one. Horses spook far more easily than llamas, and many have not encountered llamas before.
Bobra has had many llamas herself and out of her experience she has developed many ways to train them. For instance, she teaches llamas to allow themselves to be haltered by using a slow movement in approaching their faces with the halter. The animals seem to appreciate the calmness, and it's really quite easy for anyone to learn to halter llamas this way. Her methods are also widely used with alpacas.
She trains llamas of all ages, and you can learn to do it too. While you might wish that all your llamas would be already trained when you get them, you are likely to find some that need more work. This is because people often don't know how to train or they just don't bother. But you can get a DVD online which shows Bobra Goldsmith's methods. It's useful for learning to train llamas, naturally -- that's what it was made for -- but it also turns out that quite a few people get the DVD before they get llamas, to get a sense of what is involved in llama training.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
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.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entirety, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE links (without "nofollow" tags).
by: RosanaHart
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