The Emerald Desert

Half a year ago, I was approached with what I thought was the perfect home for Nimbus. One that was aware of his behavioral issues and prepared to handle them, who wanted to give him the one-on-one attention and care I knew he would thrive with.  Unfortunately, it fell through. When I came home this winter, I immediately realized Nimbus cannot leave.  His pasterns have begun to drop. They are even worse than Comet’s.  Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to be in pain. He doesn’t show any signs of discomfort like Comet did. He doesn’t grind his teeth, shift his weight, kush excessively or tense his face. He still plays and runs and asks for back rubs and cookies. Not looking at his legs, you wouldn’t know anything is wrong with him.  But I’m still left with some very difficult decisions. I cannot and will not allow any animal in my care to suffer, and there is no way to cure dropped pasterns.  For now, his quality of life is maintained. All I can do for now is have my mom keep me closely updated on how he’s doing.  

We got delayed by heavy traffic coming back into our state, so unfortunately we didn’t make it home until about 10pm. It was totally dark out, but the moon was full and the sky was clear that night so everything was bathed in silvery light and looked beautiful. Still, I worried about Rialto adjusting to his new home in the dark, so I stayed with him for a while to make sure he was ok and waited for him to bed down for the night before going home.  Usually, a llama in a new environment, *especially* a baby leaving his home herd for the first time would understandably be a little disoriented. I was expecting a lot of stressed humming, pacing, or worse case-scenario, bolting.  Nope. Rialto was turned loose with Kai and took off *pronking* through the pasture. It was almost unnerving to watch him navigate the pasture so easily, as if he’d known it all his life. He knew where every dip in the ground was to avoid it, knew where the fenceline was and greeted Comet, Nimbus and Silas enthusiastically but not nervously. After a bit of stretching his legs, he settled right down to graze alongside Kai.  He never once seemed rattled. He has fit right in like he was made to be here from the very first moment.  Unfortunately, I had to leave to cross the state again the next day, as my classes had just begun and I had an exam to get to on time. I left my mom in charge of keeping a close eye on the herd and seeing to Rialto’s supplements and needs and keeping me updated.  He won everyone’s hearts over just as quickly as he did mine! 

As he is still very young, this show he was only shown in fiber and conformation classes. No performance shows until he’s older, to avoid burnout.  His final results, at just 5.5 months old:  -Double Grand Champion Silky Male (Under both judges) -ILR Western Championship Grand Champion Silky Male (Under both judges) -Double first and ILR Western Champion First Place Juvenile Silky Male -Reserve Champion Single Fleece-On Placing him as the #1 Halter Juvenile Male for the registry in 2018!  I am so thankful to my mentor for trusting me enough to give me the opportunity to purchase this incredible young llama, and for showing him for me in this competition and getting him off to such a great start! I am so excited to continue his career and I truly hope to make her proud <3 

We tried out a new venue for a less-formal summer performance show. The original plan was for my mom and I to go with just Kai, and I was going to bring my dog Wish along to camp with us. It’s always been one of my dreams to go to a llama show with my dogs, like everyone else does, and while this time it was just Wish while Kizzie stayed home, I still had so much fun bringing him along!  But then we drove up and were pulling into our camping spot and I spotted Rialto’s mom... and her fuzzy son popped his head up from behind her!!  My mentor kept it a secret and had everyone in on it, but she brought Rialto along as a surprise for me to visit with him and spend some time with him. I was so touched and over the moon with the whole weekend and getting to see him and have all these amazing experiences with him!  The venue was gorgeous. A rodeo ground with a scenic mountain backdrop and woods below with a shallow little river perfect for playing in running through it. During the day while it was hot, we’d all march down to the river with the llamas to play in the water, and in the evening we held the performance show!  I got to cross “swam in a river with llamas” off my bucket list. Rialto blew me away with how willing he was, just a little bit of encouragement and he was SWIMMING! He handled everything so well and it was seriously a dream come true to get to do all this with him.  This year, we’re going to take him to the ocean ;)  Wish had plenty of fun too! I taught him how to swim and he had a blast thinking he was herding the giant caravan of llamas down to the river. It was pretty fun to watch how proud of himself he was, haha. He’s pictured enjoying the river with Rialto’s full brother (born in 2016), Murano!