Great! Now, ALL the animals are mad at me! The vet came over today with the intent to give the Addie Acres hoard their shots. Dr. Larry, our adult son Kyle and I chased, cornered, tricked, tackled and yelled at running horses, llamas and goats. It took over an hour to get the job done. It felt like a long weekend moving a household! Sparky ran like the wind. She ran and ran and ran and ran, and, oh, did I mention that she ran? She was NOT going to let Doc stick her with anything. Finally, after a loooonnnng run and chase … she stopped and stood there defiantly, but in defeat! HA! We win … she got her meds!
The llamas and alpaca were another story. When we were trying to corner Sammy & Lincoln in the open field, they kept running towards the fence where rogue llama Stormy was pacing. Since he is not overly fond of any other male in the pasture, he was very upset! Stormy pushed against the fence spitting in our direction while yelling out his clacking war cry toward the boys. He then tried to jump, push through, and topple the fence all in one motion which unnerved smaller alpaca Lincoln since he is usually the target of Stormy’s rampaging aggression.
So … three humans, two llamas and one scared Alpaca began to run in circles yelling, clacking and spitting with a few choice sailor words blurted from the guys! We finally got them cornered and did a free-for-all grab with Lincoln getting caught as Sammie slipped through six arms and galloped to the farthest corner of the pasture that he could possibly get with Kyle undeterred running after him.
“My camera … I need my camera!!” I thought. Youth.
Kyle chased that llama in a wide circle as Stormy uncharacteristically spit back towards The Doc while I hung onto a squirmy Lincoln. Sammie ran for the gate and was cut off by our salty old vet who has learned all the sneak, grab and hold tricks from the past 40 years. With syringes and medicine in hand and a few quick pokes, we claimed victory with “job somewhat well done”! Ten upset animals, now in stunned silence, watched as three humans high fived and gave cowboy style whoops of YIPPEE!!!
I didn’t mention how we corned the goats. Sierra and Dillon put on a performance deserving an account all their own. To be continued.
