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| Training by Camels |
| Posted March 25, 2007 by Stuart |
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I'd been around camels for 13 years before I began training them. The need to train them arose soon after our third baby camel arrived. The present story took place a couple of years ago...
There are still very few good camel trainers around so I started reading books about horse training and was soon attending my first natural horsemanship clinic. For three days I observed, took notes, asked questions and tried to take in as much information as I could. The instructor was young but he knew his stuff and served me up a good introduction to the potentials that lay ahead.
So the day after the clinic I'm back in the pasture trying a few things with the camels. I kept it simple and things went pretty well - mostly.
After a while I started working with Google Mama, a serious, no-nonsense camel... powerful and intense. About 2200 pounds. A mother of three. Someone commanding respect.
She responded easily at first, which inspired me to go further. I gently tried for another ten or fifteen minutes asking her to do this one little routine with me. I was standing right in front of her, a couple of steps away from her muzzle.
After showing lots of patience Google Mama starts getting annoyed. I stay with it to try to bring her through. My mistake. She wasn't ready, and I wasn't ready. She was BIG and I was a complete novice. But there I am, trying to be a trainer of some kind.
After about ten minutes the big lady has had enough, and she lets me know about it.
So I'm standing there diddling with my new found techniques, or whatever the hell I was up to, trying to be sincere but not really aware of what I was getting myself into. Suddenly a huge shape rises up beside me, with glaring eyes, large open mouth and teeth... a charging wall of muscle, wool and raw integrity.
By the time I'm conscious again I'm twenty feet across the field and running hard, my mind still babbling, "I should stand my ground!” Luckily, my body has better survival instincts!
Pumping my legs through the long grass I fell once and got up, fell again and got up. Her great feet thumped behind me. Off to the side the three other camels were lined up staring... sharing popcorn, I swear! I fell a third time and my hamstring pulled. Broiling pain shot through my leg. I rolled, expecting a huge foot to crush through my chest or head. Everything blurred, and then cleared. I let go to my death...
No foot came. I looked up. Blue sky, not brown bulk. My thigh screamed... mouth dry... chest heaving...
Raising my head I met Google Mama's eyes, glaring at me from ten or twelve paces. I felt like a severely rebuked child... embarrassed, put in my place. Her gaze stung me, "Do you get it now? Have more respect, boy!"
I got it. She jogged away to the far end of the field and threw some bucks and jumps to unwind, before grazing.
Peaceful Baba, a young gelding camel, strolled over to me and stood looking down, a bit puzzled.
I dragged up onto my good foot and limped back through the tall grass. I knew the best thing I could do right then was leave, head bowed.
As I hobbled away, Jelly Baba, a black bull about eighteen months old, prowled after me. I felt like a wounded monkey being stalked by a rogue baboon! Having just seen his mom run me off I think a new game was taking shape in his head.
I'm grateful for Google Mama's lesson that day. She gave me essential instruction for everything that's followed. The help of good human trainers is indispensable, but it's still the camels who have the most to teach about camel training.
When I returned to Google Mama later that day she approached me sweetly, her face open and soft. We were good. She'd never intended to run me down. She had only treated me like the annoying youngster I was, requiring me to grow... or get out. And grow I must, bit by tiny bit....
We have since begun using the Liberty Training methods and approach with our camels. Liberty Training is the term used by Carolyn Resnick for the form of relationship training she teaches to humans who which to better understand their horses. Dialectic variations exist between horses and camels but the overall dynamics of herd, hierarchy and culture are close enough such that only minimal "translation" is necessary. |
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Permanent Link | Category : Sacred Camels
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© 2005-2006 The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.
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