RETRIEVING
..or "the statue game"

THE METHOD I'M USING

This is really just a fun thing. Fun for me and fun for the boys, in particular Oscar who, it seems, would keep it up all day so long as I threw the bag, ball or glove for him.
Retrieving is merely an extension of targeting. The object to be thrown is firstly given a special significance in the same way as is the target. The object is then dropped and a click and reward is given for nosing it on the ground. Then more is asked of the llama; he has to get a little more vigorous with the object, pushing it around with his nose or mouth. At some point he will open his mouth, usually by accident or randomly and attempt to grasp it. THEN the click and reward comes into its own. And the praise! 

Dillon fetching my hat.


From this point on, progression is made to picking up and dropping, then picking up so that the handler is given the object, then throwing the object a few inches so that the llama has to walk a step to hand the object over... and so on until he is going out several yards to retrieve. If anyone is attempting this, may I pass on a comment made to me by Paul Rose of Roseland Llamas. I had asked him why llamas find it difficult to carry objects and whether there was anything it could carry easily. Whilst Paul could not help with the latter, he made the interesting comment that camelids are one of the few animals that never carry anything in their mouths in nature. They do not carry their young and they do not carry prey or food. So I am asking a lot!

If you can add anything to my work or have any questions or comments, please e-mail me.

HOW WE'RE DOING

The story so far: Oscar has been retrieving for over two years and I have been working recently at increasing the rate of run out and bring back. He has worked with all sorts of objects including a dumbell. Toby has started to carry a ball back to me and it's coming on well. I am currently working at retrieving with the alpaca

April 28th 2010 (see below)

I've recently acquired a suri alpaca and have started some retrieving work with him. I guess I've put in several hours already, though these arent solid hours. The concentration of this animal ( and maybe all alpacas, I dont know) is very intense, but comes in very short spans.My entire pattern and tempo of work has had to change and adapt to this. Also I'm havingto do a great deal of repetition. The net result is that it's all rather slow. I have got Banksy interested in his toy..it is a soft pickupable one.. By a great deal of shaping, I have managed to get him as far as going out to fetch it (albeit very slowly) and bringing it back a few steps to me without dropping it. It's all a bit hit and miss at present particularly as he seems to have great difficulty walking, let alone running, with anything in his mouth. Add to this the eating of his previous reward and the result is dropsy!