First some background. My friend John and his better half Judith are IT professionals but like many in New Zealand they also have a small holding which is home to several so-called domesticated livestock. For reasons best known to John and the economics of farming, the menagerie includes several Alpaca which as you no doubt know are a sort of llama/sheep/camel hybrid thingy. They key thing to understand about alpaca is that they have "attitude". The other thing to know is that as a small holding it is feasible for all the animals to have pet names and for those not familiar with polite British society, an ASBO is an anti-social behaviour order. Armed with this knowledge I will let John tell the story.
Today was the day that our overly amorous alpaca, Armondo had his ‘ASBO’ carried out by the vet. For a while now Armondo has been getting way too aggressive with Yoda (another ‘intact’ male), basically by trying to eat him whenever the two were in the same paddock. More recently he has become equally aggressive towards all of the other alpaca. While I was in the UK he managed to break the lower leg of Storm (a yearling female and his daughter). In the act of trying to separate Armondo from the female alpaca Judith also managed to break two fingers. It was at this point it was decided that his procreating days were soon to be over. We can’t breed from Yoda as the two females are related to him, so with a slightly guilty feeling we decided to organise the same treatment for him.
I had managed to herd Armondo into the stock yard and got Yoda into the adjacent barn without either of them seeing each other. They have a spit on sight policy towards each other and I didn’t want to be in the middle if they did catch a glimpse. The spit of an alpaca is composed of putrid smelling semi digested grass with a strong hint of stomach acid. It is not something that you want on your clothes let alone on bare skin. The aroma is curiously penetrative and lingers for days afterwards.
The vet turned up and decided that it would be easier to work on both of the animals in the stockyard. We devised a plan. Armondo would be tranquilised first and when he became unconscious, we would bring Yoda in and tranquilise him. With both animals unconscious the vet would then perform the operations. It was a splendid plan in all but one respect, it didn’t work! Armondo objected quite strongly to having a needle stuck into his shoulder, and it took both of us virtually sitting on him to get him to keep still long enough for the injection. The side of the stock yard was now decorated in a Jackson Pollock style green effect splatter. At least his aim was bad and he missed both of us. When the tranquiliser began to have an effect the vet suggested we hobbled Armondo to make the access to his privates easier. This involves binding the back legs up either side of his rib cage. It sounds worse than it looks and essentially it is the same position that an alpaca will use when sitting down. Despite the effects of the tranquiliser, Armondo once again started to object about the binding. This time he pebble dashed the other side of the stock yard with noxious green goo. A few minutes later when he had calmed down again, the vet gave him a second tranquiliser shot as he wasn’t asleep.
Yoda was much more compliant and got his tranquiliser shot without any trouble whilst still in the barn. The vet decided it was safe to get Yoda into the stock yard now as both animals were quite groggy, but importantly not quite asleep. Things started to go downhill from here. As soon as Armondo saw Yoda, he went bezerk, and it was as if he hadn’t had any medication at all. He was screaming with a fury that even astonished the vet, only stopping briefly to aim and fire salvoes of spit at Yoda. His back legs were tied up but he started to wriggle violently to inch forward towards Yoda. Being very unsporting, Yoda, who had use of all his legs, albeit wobbly ones, went into the offensive, letting fly with his own green goo. The vet and I intervened and pushed Yoda away, but not before the vet received a direct ‘hit’ on his jacket. It was now the turn of Yoda to get a second dose of tranquiliser and also got hobbled. The next bit reminded me of the Black knight in that Monty Python film. Neither animal had any mobility at all but they were both bouncing up and down desperately trying to fight with the other. A third shot of tranquiliser was deemed too dangerous so the vet decided to give a local anaesthetic in the soon to be removed area of both animals. The thought of an injection in that area made me wince, and it made Armondo scream some more. I almost had some sympathy with him at this point (Judith wouldn’t have).
Yoda was by now the calmest, so he was operated on first. I suspect that most males would have found the next bit a quite uncomfortable process to watch, so I won’t go into details. The job (from incision to mopping up) only took the vet a couple of minutes and Yoda didn’t make a fuss at all. Now it was the turn of Armondo. Either the spit tanks were empty or he had just given up on that particular tactic, but he was still very much awake and full of nervous energy or red mist (probably both). As soon as the vet began to feel for his targets, Armondo was objecting again. The restraints made it difficult for him to move his rear end, but I had to virtually sit on his neck to stop him thrashing about. He had given up on screaming, probably due to very sore vocal chords from the last objection, but he was breathing in and out very noisily in a sort of worried hyperventilating way. If alpacas could sweat, he would have been soaked by now. It then occurred to me that he had also just witnessed what had happened to Yoda, and probably drew an unpleasant but accurate conclusion as to what was going to happen to him now.
During the operation the vet yelled across to Yoda ‘hey he’s got much bigger nuts than you’. A little insensitive for both alpaca I thought, but maybe for a very brief second Armondo was proud. Again the procedure was quick to perform, this time with slightly less blood but precisely the same amount of cringe. Judith still has a sore hand and would have probably taken some pleasure in watching this. After a few minutes recovery we untied Yoda, encouraged him onto his feet and herded him back into the paddock to join his friends. He was a little unsteady on his legs at first but was soon moving around and grazing as if nothing had happened.
The vet noticed that Armondo’s toenails needed clipping so he decided to do this whilst he was still restrained. I held onto the spitting end and the vet clipped the nails on both front feet. Just as the vet was about to clip the last rear toenail, Armondo saw an opportunity, and seized it. The tool used to clip alpaca toenails looks like a pair of secateurs and are just as sharp. Timing it to perfection, Armondo twitched his back leg which caused the vet to slip and stab his thumb with the tips of the tool.
I think it is a common human trait to apply anthropomorphic personifications onto animals, so in keeping with this tradition I will say that at this point Armondo did look like he had a vengeful smug grin on his face. The vet went off to bandage his hand and then we untied Armondo. With no other alpaca around, Armondo was back to his normal placid self. When I let him into the paddock, I couldn’t help noticing that he was walking normally from the front end, but the back end was very different. He had a developed a distinctive ‘John Wayne’ wide gait and picked his back legs up tentatively, like they were on a very sticky surface.
I know this was a bit of departure from all things fitness but it made me laugh. Many thanks to John for letting me post his tale.
