Hope gives way to compassion

By David Horst   sandhill7@gmail.com

Hope gave way to compassion last Thursday.

We were barely into the barn when the vet pronounced hope was gone.

"We're in hospice mode now," she concluded.

Our 17-year-old llama, Constellatione, has not been able to stand on his own for several weeks now. In the world of a natural prey animal like a llama, that's a fatal flaw.

We've been holding out hope that lifting him daily with a cattle sling and an electric winch would get the strength back into his legs so we could see him grazing in the pasture once again.


He had been knocked down by a systemwide infection caused by an impacted tooth. At his age, a trip to the UW Vet School in Madison to have a tooth extracted is out of the question. Antibiotics and blankets had knocked back the infection, but the extra stress on his healing powers allowed his underlying neurological problem to advance. A parasite -- probably from deer droppings -- invaded his body and began affecting his movements early in the winter. That's the best theory anyway.

The vet said he is not likely to be able to stand on his own. We will need to look after him and make him comfortable, she said, until he tells us it's time.

One look in his bright eyes, witnessing his ample appetite for grain and feeling him help when we try to shift him to what we think is a more comfortable position all say that time is not now.

In the wild in his native Peru, this illness would have made him a victim of predators long ago. Consty has the advantage of living in a barn within a secure pasture fence, but the disease seems destined to claim him anyway.

Does that mean hope is finally gone?

That's not the trade I have felt. Instead of hopelessness, we've taken on more compassion.

Besides, he is looking stronger and we haven't ruled out the possibility that he will prove the doctor wrong.

This is an animal that has made us smile for 17 years. He endured being packed into a Volkswagen bus and marched into a school classroom to be handled by second-graders.

He has ruled over all llama disputes as the largest male in the herd.

He has performed his trick on cue whenever an audience required. "He has a switch here on his back," we would tell believing visitors. When we scratched the right spot, he would wag his fluffy llama tail.

Those are memories that warrant a few more trips to the barn, special efforts to get him nutrition and to clean up the results.

We continue to lift him -- both with the hoist and to get him back upright when he rolls to his side and can't get back to an upright position. Cushing is the term for how a llama lies down with its legs tucked underneath.

We continue to monitor whether he seems to have more energy or less, whether he seems comfortable or cold or alert.

Looking for some indiction of how long before it's time.