Thursday, December 4, 2014

Llamas on the Attack!

One night before rehearsal, my friend Cotton Wright made the mistake of telling me that her sister had witnessed attack llamas, that is llamas who act like guard dogs at various properties in the southwest.  This image of half of a pushmepullyou behaving like Jimmy Carter's attack rabbit has stayed with me. 
In the November 10th issue of the New Yorker, Alec Wilkinson wrote a feature called "Modern Farmer, and the Back to the Land Movement," in which he interviewed the former (as of yesterday) editor of Modern Farmer magazine (who knew there was such a thing?), An Marie Gardner, and a farmer, David Munson, Jr.  Munson had a few things to say about his llamas, which he keeps to guard his goats:  "Llamas don't like dogs, they don't like coyotes, they don't really like people-  they put up with them because they bring them food.  Some are more protective than others.  Mine were raised [on his farm north of Dallas] as pet llamas, I think, and they just didn't go after the bad guys.  They would walk ff and leave the goats.  The predators often kill for fun.  You have all these goats that are torn up ... It's a combat situation... I replaced the llamas with guard dogs."