'Llama Love': Therapy Animals Enchant Dublin High Students
/“It’s very therapeutic to love,” said the llamas’ owner. “When you see the llamas, you want to love them. ”
DUBLIN, CA — Dublin High School students and staff got a chance to "share the llama love" this week when four therapy animals from Llamas of Circle Home in Sonora dropped by the campus, said owner George Caldwell.
Students got some face time with the gentle animals and fed llamas carrots by their teeth, to help train the llamas to maintain eye contact, Caldwell said. He estimated the campus went through eight pounds of carrots.
Over the three decades that Caldwell has spent working with llamas, he's come to believe that many innately have social skills and are an underrated form of therapy animal. He said they are generally considerate and thoughtful animals.
"They try to sense people and who they are, it's amazing," he said. "They want to be of assistance, they understand they've got power."
Ah, llama power.
It has a way of releasing tension and anxiety, and bringing people joy and laughter in hard times, Caldwell said. Schools have called up Llamas of Circle Home to help students cope with the losses of classmates gone too soon and the pressures of finals week. A University of California, Berkeley student once told Caldwell that his llamas were the best part of his college experience.
And then there's the time Caldwell himself was stressed out, driving his llama-transport van on a two-lane highway in the dark, facing blinding headlights. Two llamas sensed his mood and rested their heads near his shoulder to comfort him, Caldwell said.
When a person gets up close to a llama's face, looks it in the eye and takes a breath, "butterflies go all over the place," Caldwell said. It's like magic, he said. That connection has inspired Caldwell to make raising and advocating for therapy llamas his life's work.
"People tell llamas things they don't tell anyone else," he said.
Dublin High got to experience four of Caldwell's best llamas, young animals still in training but learning well. They have distinctive personalities.
"Three of them are very bright," Caldwell said. "The other one's just very agreeable."
There were smiles abound. Hundreds gathered around the pen that had been set up for the animals. That's typical, Caldwell said. The hardest part is keeping kids' enthusiasm in check.
As the students got around to meeting all four of the llamas, they started to congregate around their favorite, he said. That's typical too.
And at Dublin High — like everywhere he goes — Caldwell said he heard a student say it was "the best day ever."
That's llama power at work.
"It's very therapeutic to love," Caldwell said. "When you see the llamas, you want to love them."