In Which Pepper Doesn't Get Groomed

That Pepper--well, she's something else. After we groomed and trimmed Lacey's nails today, it was Pepper's turn and darned if she didn't hop right out of the chute and take off.

My dad lost his grip on her lead rope when he lost his shoe in the weeds (yes, it was pretty funny) but fortunately Pepper stopped at the corner of the pasture fence and he caught up with her.

You can't tug, drag, cajole, coax, or budge a willful 200-lb llama (worse than a mule, lemme tell ya) so it took bringing her mamma Lacey out of the barn to get Pepper to head back to where she was supposed to be, and we gave up on the grooming for the day.


When we're trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to--like get in the chute or the horse trailer--she also does this thing where she'll droop her long neck over and lay her head on the ground (possibly accompanied by a little bit of sad llama-humming) as if she's just broken down where she stands.

Some drama queen, this one--she's so smart that I can see her performing this bit of dramatic acting in the ring and judges and on-lookers alike wondering what sort of abuse we've inflicted on the poor thing!