Llama Training: What Every Llama Should Know | Pets and Animals

By RosanaHart
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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 be haltered.

2. To hike with you on a leash that they don't pull taut.

3. To jump into a van, pickup, or trailer for transporting.

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 that, what a llama will be doing will determine what you train it to do. If a llama is destined to be a pack animal going into the mountains with you, then a series of lessons in carrying a pack will be called for. Llamas can be trained to drive to cart, to sit down and get up on command, and much more.

"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.

Speaking of dogs, llamas learn much more quickly than dogs to walk easily when on a leash. Where a typical dog will be pulling this way and that at first, llamas are far more likely to keep the leash quite loose. So it's great fun to hike with them. By the way, if you are out hiking with a llama and you see one or more horses coming along the trail towards you, do give way to them. Horses can be rather afraid of llamas when they first meet.

Bobra teaches her llama training methods. Take haltering, for example -- she has developed a slow motion method that llamas seem to like. With the gradual approach of the halter to the llama's face, the animal comes to trust the process more easily than if you just waved the halter around faster. You can also do this with alpacas, for that matter. These methods have been used on both animals.

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.

About the Author

For more about expert llama trainer Bobra Goldsmith and her methods, visit this llama training page. Rosana Hart is the author of two books on llamas and worked with Bobra to create the DVD.

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