Llama permits bandaging after costume class experience

Llamas are very trainable. Somewhere along the way of llamas being in the U.S., someone got the idea of dressing them up in costumes for costume class. When judges are judging a costume class of dressed-up llamas, they look for coverage of the llama and cleverness of the costume. The judge likes to see many parts of the llama covered. The idea behind it is you spend time working with your llama desensitizing him or her to wearing the "outfit" and by the time the show rolls around, they are willing to be draped, cloaked or wrapped in the handler's costume creation.

I have never been a fan of a costume class for any species. It just doesn't seem a very dignified thing to do -- to ask such lovely, regal animals to be covered in a costume. And you just don't see other livestock in costumes. But as a trainer and a teacher of young and newbie llama handlers, I do know that it is often a favorite class for the kids. So I go along. But I do not tolerate the creation of a costume the night before a show and not giving the llama a chance to wear and learn the costume ahead of time.

Last summer, my 4-Hers did a great job of starting well enough ahead of the county fair in order to get their llama partners understanding and agreeing to the costumes. We used kind and gentle training techniques that were very effective in getting the llamas to accept their new clothes. We also had to brainstorm with parents and friends on ways to fasten head pieces and other costume elements. In the end, the kids competed with their llamas as a pair of princesses, as clowns and as show girls with fancy head pieces of feathers.

In the end, I was proud of the kids and the llamas. They all worked very hard on the costumes and the training. But I have to admit, I'm still not really a fan of costume class. But I have found a side benefit ... my llama, Betty, got a minor laceration on her hind leg in September and I had to treat it and then keep it clean for a few days while it healed. She stood so very quietly as she was tied in the barn aisle with a simple safety knot on the stall wall for wound treatment each day.

It is not normal for a llama to be willing to let you mess with their legs or their feet. They have a fear of having their ability to flee taken away from them. But there Betty stood for me. Confidant that I would not hurt her. Four feet on the ground while I cleaned her wound, applied a gauze bandage and wrapped her with Vetrap. The Vetrap was the very thing we had used to decorate her legs with in her clown costume, so she was used to all the attention on her legs and feet. OK, so costume class isn't such a bad thing after all!