Toenails Without Tears

The adaptability of alpacas to new experiences just amazes me every time I see it. It seems like dogs and cats, whose surroundings and daily routine seem far more susceptible to change than that of alpacas, take several events of a specific type occurring over and over before they’ll get used to it happening. Alpacas, on the other hand, seem to only need to experience something once before they figure out if it’s harmless or not.

Take The Mysterious Broom, for instance. A few weeks ago we picked up a large push broom to keep in the barn because the boys throw their hay around when they eat with wild abandon, and so every morning when we feed them we sweep up the mess to discourage vermin and keep the boys from cushing down in it and getting it stuck in their fleece (because I’m the one who has to clean that out later). The first time we brought out The Mysterious Broom the boys were eating in the barn and they immediately panicked, flailing around and clumsily bumping into each other in their rush to get out of the barn. OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING?! It’s some…big…brown THING! And they’re pushing it toward us! Get out! Get out while you still can!

The next day we practically had to push them out of the barn with the broom just to sweep around their feet. And now on most days Benz likes to play The Broom Game where we sweep and he gets in our way, leaning down to inspect the broom closely as we sweep at his feet.

Today we decided to do toenails. It’s only been about two months since we last clipped them so we knew they likely weren’t going to need clipping today, but it’s good practice for us and the boys to just do an overall check anyway. The last time we did this we closed the outer doors of the barn, got them in there with their usual treat bucket, and then closed the big door behind them — they panicked and suddenly the treats in my hand were completely unimportant as the only goal was to get OUT.

This time, though, we did the same thing but the boys panicked far less. In fact, the alpacas even let us dupe them not once but twice in rapid succession. Matt hung outside the big door, just like last time, while the boys crammed to the back of the barn, which is where we always feed them their minerals (and this is why). Silverton, being the keen, observant guy that he is, immediately sussed out that something was up. Why is only one of the humans in here? As soon as his little brain started putting two and two together he headed straight for the barn door. Matt hadn’t even gotten close to closing it yet as he was going to give the boys a second to get in there and get eating, but clearly that was the wrong move — Silverton booked it out the door and the other two boys followed on his heels. I was afraid that we’d blown it, that they knew today was some kind of Doing Something Unpleasant In The Barn Day but I shook the treat bucket in my hand and miraculously they came right back. As soon as they were in Matt grabbed the door and, just like last time, Silverton and the boys tried to make a break for it but it was too late.

But unlike last time they really didn’t panic much. Cinnamon and Silverton started humming a bit but apart from that, they actually went right back to eating their treats right out of my hand as if nothing was wrong. I was amazed. We’d only done this with them a couple of times two months ago and both times they were annoyed and displeased with us.

So we worked with Benz first and he was almost as easy as last time. What’s interesting this time is that since we only wanted to really check their nails and trim lightly we didn’t bother to halter them, we just decided we’d hold them. With Benz he was still super easy about it, but I noticed that he was actually just a tiny bit less docile than he was the last time, and I wonder if it had to do with the lack of a halter. Benz was a PR animal at Don and Jody’s, so I think for him the halter — which he takes very easily — signifies a whole different set of behaviors for him. I suspect that he knows that when the halter’s on he’s going to be handled and touched, but without the halter he doesn’t really know what to expect. Still, he’s such an easy boy to do this with that he was no problem, just like last time.

Cinnamon was far easier for us this time. We were prepared for his shenanigans. A couple of months ago Don and Jody had come up and shown us a few extra tricks we could use against all of Cinnamon’s foils: the cushing, the kicking, etc. So this time Matt held onto Cinnamon and I pulled out all the stops — when Cinnamon tried to kick with his back leg I put my knee under him just like Don had showed us, which prevents him from being able to bend his leg for that kick. Then he tried to cush down but aha! I put my knee under body so that he couldn’t actually lay down, the most he could do was rest his weight on me, but that only made his foot more accessible.

Silverton was also a lot easier. One funny thing I noticed was that he was actually far calmer when I was holding him than when Matt was. The moment we switched positions and I took hold of Silverton his whole body seemed to relax just a tiny bit. He did prepare some spit that he tried to let loose on us but it wasn’t to be. But boy, I’ll tell you what: Silverton is not light. The other two boys probably weigh around 120-130 pounds (I think that was Don and Jody’s guess) and Silverton weighs a little more than that. Silverton tried to cush while I looked at his back foot so I did the knee-under-him trick and got all 160 pounds or so of him on my one bent knee. That’s hard to hold up.

So we’ve been really bolstered by this. We didn’t need any extra hands this time and the boys just felt far more manageable. I think they’re getting used to The Routine and it should just get easier each time we do it.