Halter Training Sandwich

Zack is my faithful halter training helper. While we had all our alpacas halter trained, and even attended an alpaca show in early March, we then added Princess to our herd. She was not halter trained when she arrived at our farm. The first time we got the halter on her, she laid down on the ground pretending to be dead.

Zack and I have a few years of halter training under our belt. We have our typical protocol, but we like to come up with new ideas to help them learn. We know different things work for different alpacas. We typically use "train with a buddy" - which is where you attach a newbie to one who already is halter trained so that the newbie can see how it's done (I've often done this with the juvi and their dam). We don't have Princess' dam on our farm, so that option wouldn't work. Zack thought she needed lots of extra help. His idea "lets sandwich her between two alpacas who know what they are doing."

We decided to use Rose and Twilight as our experienced haltered alpacas - the bread of the sandwich. They are both almost 2 years old, they have been to many alpaca shows, and do well on the halter. Then Princess went between them. Here's the trio:



I didn't get a good picture of them walking, I wish I had because it totally worked! Zack's idea was right on. Princess walked right between Rose and Twilight. If Princess would hesitate or think about laying down the other girls led her the right way. By the end not only was she walking in the sandwich, but I took her alone and she walked!! It's a miracle!