Llama Training What is Involved

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 accept the halter. 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! "Llamas are very fast learners," says Bobra Goldsmith, a well-known llama trainer. "When you are teaching a llama something, don't be surprised if he gets it after just a few trials." 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. 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.

Learn more about llama training and the llama DVD mentioned in the article.