Here’s Baby Poldine’s second school report!
First semester of llama school consisted in just walking into the chute and spending a few minutes in there every day until she was no longer stressed about being stuck in this strange narrow place. (It was a two-week semester) (she’s a quick study)
Llama 102 involved wearing a halter while in the chute, and being given little bits of banana peel to distract her from how horrible and embarrassing wearing a halter (apparently) is. She kept rubbing her face against stuff trying to remove the stupid thing, but eventually she got used to it, and when she started hanging out in the chute with a halter on looking like a bored teenager I knew it was time to move on to Lesson 3.
(Not sure where Pampe’s neck is going in the background. I don’t want to know)
Lesson 3 is walking into the chute, being haltered, walking out and following a human around the (closed) pen with the halter & lead rope. Which means being subjected to having your head pulled this way and that which is every bit as unpleasant as wearing a halter initially was. Pampoldine received kisses and clementine peelings every time she came to me or walked a few steps alongside me or generally did the opposite of digging in her heels and pulling on the rope.
Also, Poldine thinks cats smell nice and she always wants to sniff the top of their head when she sees one, so special thanks to Merricat for accepting to be used as live llama bait to get Poldine to start walking into the chute of her own free will :)
(Merricat prefers the term ‘teaching assistant’)
I tried uploading a 30 second video but either tumblr or my wifi wouldn’t let me :( The gist of it was, the lesson was going well but Pampe was being a bit of a nuisance, distracting her daughter, and then Pampelune spat at her. Here are some screencaps:
Pampe had frowny ears, maybe she was being protective of her baby, to be fair. Like, what are you doing to her, remove this halter immediately. But at some point Pampelune chased her all over the pen spitting at her and Pampe looked mortified about being told off by her mum, it was so funny. The dispute probably had to do with hay, but it’s so rare for mild-mannered Mama Pampy to spit, it really looked like she was annoyed with Pampe for disrupting her granddaughter’s lesson! (I managed to dodge the spit.)
Lesson 4 was all the same stuff, but with a wide open pen, so Poldine could technically tear the rope from my hands and run away to the other end of her pasture. Which was something Pampérigouste did systematically when she was a child in llama school. She came to tolerate wearing a halter and walking around with me in the closed pen, but as soon as I opened the door and she saw an opportunity to escape, she’d make some kind of brusque movement to tear the rope from my hands, and bolt.
Pampe’s daughter on the other hand is a pleasure to have in class and it never occurred to her to do such a thing, so we’re now able to do the same exercises again but in a less coerced way—instead of trapping her in the chute to halter her, I now just put some hay in the pen to attract the llamas (when Merricat is busy), then walk in without closing the door and present Poldine with her halter and some kind of treat, and she’ll put her nose through the noseband to reach the treat, basically putting the halter on herself. I could never reach this stage with Pampe—I still have to resort to wily ruses to approach her without her noticing the halter; meanwhile I can be honest about my intentions with Poldine, I’m like here’s your halter and here’s your treat. You know what’s going to happen if you choose to go for the treat, and she’s like okay, fair :)
Someone doesn’t think life is fair, though.
I have to hold Pirlouit back every time I put some hay in the pen to get Poldine in there, or he’ll go and not only eat it but also shoo everyone else out of the pen to hoard the hay. Sorry Pirou, this hay is bait and you are not the fish I’m trying to catch.
Lesson 5 will start next week and consist in haltering Poldine wherever she happens to be—I think she’s now reasonably convinced that wearing a halter is not the most horrible thing in the world (no matter what her mum says) so she won’t run if I try to halter her outside of the pen. We’ll walk around a bit every day but will keep it quick and not-annoying (and highly rewarding) (with fruit) so she continues to familiarise herself with being led by a human. Maybe she will take her education further than her mother ever did by actually reaching lesson 6 (hearing sounds that mean ‘stop’ or ‘let’s go!’ and not completely ignoring me.) We’ll see!
germansingergirl
titsay
andulkaphoto
2087
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
