Jj is for Jottings: 9. Halter-training April.

April was 5 years old when we bought her 13 years ago. Since she had been living with a large number of other alpacas and her life’s mission was to be a stay-at-home mother (which she did exceedingly well), there had been no need to lead her anywhere and consequently she had never worn a halter. She also had quite a nervous disposition where humans were concerned, partly as a result of not being handled and partly because that’s just the way she is.
When we bought her, we set out to halter-train her because we needed to lead her into the trailer to meet her next husband, to move her between front and back paddocks etc. I have no recollection of actually getting the halter on her, but it would have been a struggle – none of them likes having a halter put on. But what I clearly remember is that David, who was 72 years old at the time, was the person on the other end of the lead rope. Since she was so upset we put her on a very long lead – mistake – so she was further away from those horrible humans. She began to run across the paddock, with David, manfully hanging onto the end of the lead, running along trying to keep up with her. It wasn’t long before she out-ran him and, instead of letting go, he was still holding on for dear life, being dragged across the paddock on the end of the rope. It didn’t take too many metres of being dragged before he let go!
As you can see from “Hh is for halter” we did eventually succeed in halter-training April.