Forget dogs! Here comes the new hip pet: llama.
As Jennifer A. Kingson wrote in this entertaining article over at
The New York Times, llamas are like the "potato chips" of pets. You
can't have just one:
People who keep llamas as pets will readily offer you any number
of reasons: llamas are quiet, they’re gentle and affectionate, they
don’t take a lot of work to maintain and, for outdoor animals, they
don’t smell bad.
But it’s more than that. Look at a llama and it’ll gaze back
sympathetically with those huge, beguiling eyes, ears perked up,
looking for all the world like it understands you and really cares
about your problems.
Most people start with two or three, since llamas are sociable
and don’t like to live alone. But as Katrina Capasso, a llama owner
in Ballston Spa, N.Y., discovered, “They’re like potato chips.”
It’s hard to stop at just a few. Ms. Capasso, 49, received her
first llama as a wedding gift from her husband, Gary, in 1990. Now
she has 55.
Oh, and they hum. Yes, they hum:
Llamas are generally quiet, but that doesn’t mean they don’t
make any noise. When a male is interested in a female, or mating,
he makes a noise that sounds a bit like gargling. (Llama people
call this an orgle.) Female llamas make clicking sounds. And all
llamas hum; in particular, mothers hum to their babies, which hum
back.
It’s part of the bonding process, said Susan Morgan, 54, a
home-care nurse in Hastings, Minn., who breeds miniature
llamas with her husband, George, 56, an engineer. “They
recognize each other by the hum,” she said. Two months after one of
her females gave birth, Ms. Morgan said, they were still humming at
each other.
Her husband said he gets a lot of questions about it. “People
come up to me and ask, ‘Why are the llamas humming?’ ” he
said. “And I’ll say, ‘Because they don’t know the
words.’ ”
