I guess the first lesson my llamas taught me was courtesy of my Darlin' Miranda, who was the female half of my first pair of llamas.

To digress, I walked into llamas with not the slightest hint of who they were, how they behaved, or even what they ate. I'd played around with the idea of having some sort of large animal, the end product of which wouldn't end up on someone's dinner plate.

With what I can look back on as benign ignorance, I nearly jumped for joy when a friend who owned a zoo, called me to see if I knew anyone who would like to buy a pair of llamas! With what I know now I should have said, "No, no, never!" Llamas from zoo situations seldom if ever make a successful transition from zoo to farm. Ah, the peace and joy of blathering ignorance! (Please bear in mind that this was back in the mid-eighties when llama information was sparse indeed, and a lot of it was translated from Spanish and bore little relevance to my situation.)

I was more than a little uncomfortable with Clyde (the male) who seemed quite aggressive and not at all 'user-friendly.' So I tried to make my overtures to Miranda. Poor baby, she was later diagnosed with female hyper-aggressive behavior. The male was in that terrible state of anger, sometimes referred to as male berserk syndrome. Meanwhile I decided that I had to make some sort of overture to Miranda. Cutting to the end of this sad tale, I ended up in her face, trying to convince her that I was the boss! She pulled her head back, her eyes got quite large and I heard a strange rumble, coming from her throat. Before I could worry (and it wasn't even ST Patty's day) I was a living memorial of the wearing of the green!!! Lesson number one; don't get pushy until you are pretty sure you are the 'big dog' in the situation! And with llamas if they haven't been imprinted on humans then you won't need to prove to them that you are the boss, and if they have been imprinted on humans you won't be able to prove that you're the boss because they're bigger and stronger than you.

Lesson two began when I had a chance to buy a pregnant female from this same friend (and I do use the word friend loosely by now)! She was a big red animal, and definitely large in llama! I hooked up the trailer, grabbed a friend for support, both moral as well as physical, and we were "off to get the llama." She was a vanilla flavored llama, but back then, especially in the South, llamas were indeed a rare commodity so I took what I could get. All went relatively well until I got ready to get her in the trailer (my friend who owned the zoo neglected to tell me that she'd never been handled). I had to lasso her to get close enough to halter her. Once she was haltered the next trick was to get her to load into the trailer. After several hours of wasted persuasion, I made a decision that led to 'the rest of the story'! I got into the back of the trailer, my friend got behind the llama's hind end to push, as I pulled. She was big, she was strong, and she was scared! Well, I pulled, my friend pushed (sort of a Push Me Pull You {PushMePullyu?????????????????? kind of moment) and on and on. I was about to cry uncle when one of the observers pointed out that she had gotten her front feet in the trailer but she slid her rear feet and legs up under the trailer! I finally let go of the rope and pushed her back out of the trailer.

By this time (I'm sure to some extent it happened because she was so tired) she became more amenable to the idea of just maybe becoming friends. I sat down on the ground by her, asked everybody else to clear out, and she and I hummed and chatted for a spell. After about an hour I was able to touch her and it was only a short step to getting her to load! I guess this is the first time I really thought that I was able to 'hear' what the llama was trying to tell me. My vet arranged to meet us at the farm to be sure I hadn't endangered her baby, and all's well that ends well! She came out of the adventure intact and with a really unusual name; that is how DRAGGIN came about. This was the last time I ever tried to push myself on a llama. . She and MIRANDA both taught me that you can get a lot more done if you try friendly cooperation and gentle persuasion with llamas instead of just trying to force them to do what you want.