My three gelded alpacas (two aged 4 and one aged 8) have already started an Animal Therapy Gig at Port Townsend’s Life Care Center. Just yesterday, my hubby and I were shocked when we finally got the vote with our second request. The vote narrowly passed and now allows us to be an exception to the rule that says the only our separate Highlands neighborhood are allowed to have livestock. We now have been granted a 6 month trial period to bring the alpacas to a little section of beach that is generally vacant and only for one hour a week!!!!! I am planning on starting the Cape George Alpaca Therapy Program!! I will use Systematic Desensitization and execute my plans in “baby steps.” The first “step” is just to take them to the beach (one or two at a time as I have not yet loaded all three into my van.) I would ask the Forum to offer up creative suggestions on what I can actually do with a small group of people on the Beach. I will probably have both my 20 foot lead and my typical leads. One thing that would be fun would be to create a “dance” where the alpaca would be lead down an 30 foot area and then passed on to another person who would walk back and pass the lead over and so forth. Of course, this would only be for individuals that had already had some of my coaching to leading an alpaca. I plan to provide treats to participants. The sessions will be once a week and not be longer than one hour. I also plan to present the “Porta Potty Artificial Turf Pad” that is seeded with fresh alpaca poop. I successfully did this once after a 45 minute trail walk just before loading them back into the van to come home!!! Imagine my delight when I noticed that Rico was watching Finn poop there and when I brought Rico to the potty, he actually had to work at it: he shimmied his butt for a few seconds and then finally out came the poop and pee!!!!
