Newsletter Articles written by Tera Thomas
Issue 3
Learning From Llamas
by Tera Thomas
Inka and Rainbow came to live with me a little over a year ago when they were both eleven months old. I had dreamed of two llamas who would become Hummingbird Farm teachers and I went to a farm where there were thirty llamas to see if the teachers were there. It was quite a sight to pull up and see so many beautiful llamas milling about in the pastures. When I walked to the fence, a very young black male at the back of a large pasture saw me and came running. He rubbed my face with his face saying, “You came! You’re here!”
My heart was filled with love for this young llama who went on to tell me that he wanted to be a teacher and work with humans, especially children. “This llama has to go home with me,” I told the owner. “He’s not even weaned yet, you’ll have to wait a few months and you’ll need to pick out a friend to come with him because a lone llama is not a happy llama.”
I told the llama that when he was old enough he would come to live with me and that he could bring his best buddy with him. This young black llama was Inka and his best buddy was Rainbow.
During the months that I waited for Inka and Rainbow to be weaned and ready to come and live with me, I went over to the farm to help with the big job of trimming toenails and general maintenance for thirty llamas. The people who own the farm love their llamas, yet with thirty of them there is not a lot of time for special handling. The llamas were tricked into a small pen then caught with a rope around their neck and forced into a halter. They were then led to a llama chute, a device to hold them still while their feet were worked on and they were given shots. Many of the llamas resisted having the halter put on, fretted in the chute, or refused to go in it or come out of it. The stress that these llamas went through was upsetting to me and I told Inka and Rainbow that we would make it easier for them when they came to live with me.
I truly felt that because I could talk to Inka and Rainbow it would be easy to put their halters on, to pick up their feet to trim their toenails, to get them to cooperate with all of my plans. Plus, I bought a video that showed very clearly how to use TTouch and training together and the llamas in the video were so calm and easy to manage. When Inka and Rainbow finally moved in, it was my plan to work with them each day as it instructed in the video to help them get comfortable with my presence, with the halter, and with other people. However, I had very little experience working with large animals and I was clumsy with the new equipment and I fumbled around a lot. This made both llamas very wary of me and a full scale rebellion began. When a 300 pound llama says “no” and you are only a 125 pound person, guess who wins?
I lost my confidence. I could communicate with them very well on things unrelated to the training but ran into a brick wall when I begged them to make it easy to get the halter on or to cooperate with the vet. I fretted, I cried, I felt like a total failure. How could I teach others animal communication when I couldn’t get these llamas to behave?
I called Jan Spiers to help me talk to Inka and Rainbow. Suddenly everything became clear to me. I was expecting them to simply hear my words and cooperate when my ineptness with the equipment and my lack of confidence around them made them not trust what I was saying. And I was not listening to what they said back to me. Cooperation looked like a trap to them. They were constantly trapped when they were young and cheated into situations that were frightening for them—like caught in a llama chute where people poked and prodded and lifted their feet up. I had promised it would be different with me but it looked to Inka and Rainbow like I might not keep my promise. They felt I was impatient with them and they needed my patience in order to build their trust in me. I saw all of this and apologized to Inka and Rainbow. I felt so bad that I wanted to give up the whole training program and just let them be wild. Who cared if they ever wore their halters or went for a walk with me? But, because there are times when they would have to have toenails clipped, or a vet check, or have hands on them if they were injured, I realized that I could not just give up and let them be wild. We had to figure out how to work together.
We started our training over at the beginning. I spent time being with them with no agenda, just being next to them and
touching them when they would allow it. I began to bring out the halters but not force them to put them on. I would just let them smell the halters, touch the halters and walk away when they wanted to. I kept the halters hung on a peg outside a barn stall where Inka and Rainbow could see them all the time. I kept finding the halters on the ground and one day saw Inka pull them down, throw them in the dirt and stomp on them while Rainbow watched. I picked the halters up, draped them over my shoulder and walked out to the pasture. Curious, the llamas followed and watched me practice with the halters, buckling them onto a tree branch.
I let Inka and Rainbow do things at their own pace while I practiced with the halters on my own, getting used to the feel of them. And soon we were making progress. One day when I held out the halter Inka just put his nose in it and he has done that ever since. Rainbow, who is more shy and sensitive than Inka took a little longer but finally he was doing the same thing. There are still days when I have to wait for Rainbow to get his courage up. If I try to hurry him in any way, he will not cooperate with me. If I wait for him, he will stick his nose in the halter and we’ll have a wonderful walk together. The llamas follow me around the pasture while I scoop poop and often lay their heads on my shoulder while I’m working. They playfully grab my sweatshirt in their teeth and try to pull me around like I’m on the end of their lead rope. And when the vet came last month they were calm and easy. Inka and Rainbow work with the students who come to my animal communication classes. They are open and friendly and both are very good communicators. They still do not like to be touched by people they don’t know but, if they are not grabbed at, they will kiss every person on the face.
. I have often thought about who was the trainer in this situation and I’m quite sure it was the llamas and not me. But, I was happy to be trained. As always happens, just when I think I am being truly conscious, some animal will come along to show me that it ain’t so. In the case of the llamas, two beautiful, conscious beings came to live with me so that they could teach people about animals and so that they could teach me how to better walk my talk.
