Playing football with a llama

THE METHOD I'M USING

This game is really just a variation of retrieving. I throw the ball a few yards and it is brought back to me, not in the mouth as is a thrown glove or toy, but on the grass being propelled by the llama's nose or kicked by his foot. The goal-posts are my feet. I begin the whole exercise with making the ball an active target and progress to rewarding any sort of nudging of the ball on the ground.

Video of Dillon with his ball

Then I progress to rewarding any nudging/footing that leads to a movement of the ball and gradually progress to bringing the ball back to my feet just a few inches away. The biggest problem for the llama is changing direction; he literally has to position his whole body to propel the ball in the required direction.

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HOW WE'RE DOING

The story so far:Whilst most of this fun stuff is done with Oscar and Toby, Dillon is actually the Beckham of the herd! He loves the ball. He returns it to me from quite a distance using his nose and is quite good at positioning his body to get direction. Oscar has been trained to use his feet rather than his nose. Toby is starting on noseball!

March 26th 2008

RECENT NOTES ON PROGRESS

Oscar is still kicking the ball forward using the middle and distal phalanges of his right foot. There is still a great deal of accuracy with direction; he is really positioning his body for the kick back to me. But the kick is as yet feeble and would look unimpressive to a spectator. From the point of view of click & reward I must confess that I'm unsure whether to c/r the kick that has potential but doesn't actually drive the ball far, or the randomly kicked pass that, by accident, pitches the ball forward. In other words should I let Oscar sort out which footwork best drives the ball ltowards the "goal", which is me with the goodies.