We had a meet and greet with the llamas this morning on our run. Spider wanted to go see them and ducked through the fence but came back cheerfully when I called him – three times. At that point the llamas had decided they wanted a closer look and were coming over so I put him on leash. I held him in one spot with his body on my side of the wire and his head and neck stuck through on their side. Code, Tweed, Whisper, Fanny, and Twister all came right up to the fence while Darkwing Duck hung back behind the rest muttering old-man threats like “stomp him into the ground” and “dogs don’t deserve…”, though he wasn’t going to come over and stomp him right in front of me. Nobody was inclined to spit or threaten him. Code especially was interested and came right up to sniff noses with him. Spider watched, sniffed, wagged – and finally he let out one mighty FRIENDS! bark, upon which all the llamas sneered “Fine, be that way” and wandered off.
That was a comforting meeting for me. As he’s gathering his ideas that feral cats, grasshoppers, killdeer, and quail are prey (he’ll never catch birds or cats, and he can eat all the grasshoppers he wants), the introduction was a good beginning in both directions for the idea that dogs and llamas are co-habitors on this patch of dust and lentils.