Getting Closer

My relationship with the young (3 year old) black bull, Jelly Baba, is deepening of late.

Jelly watches me working with our little silver / grey guy, HiHo. He watches and takes in what I'm doing, with and for HiHo, and then he starts doing the same with HiHo. HiHo is kind of a "problem kid". He's very sharp and smart in all kinds of ways, quite a bit smarter than the others, but he is socially impaired in some way. It takes him much longer to "get" what the others get in a few minutes.... In terms of sharing food especially, but also just knowing when to back off and show respect.

For a little guy among these 2000 + pounders he is full of a kind of dominance type behaviour, perhaps based in his fear of not getting what he wants, being small, and so on. It is amusing to see his little guy clear a feeding trough of three BIG camels, each of whom would rather walk away than get into a scrap with him.

But seeing me disciplining HiHo has drawn Peaceful and Jelly into it, and so gradually HiHo is getting served more and more consistently and I see gradual changes in him; he is gradually learning how to be more yielding, softening through it, but its going to take some time with this one before he's all the way with it.

I'm touched by Jelly Baba's growing trust of me. We seem to be herd-building together. I'm feeling more and more a part of their culture. He did accidentally kick me the other day, bounding by me full of exuberance, legs going out like a helicopter, his left hind foot collected with my right thigh and I spun like a top, then as if I was on a spring I spun back and just kept walking almost as if we'd rehearsed the thing.... with hardly a bruise.

One thing I'm finding, with HiHo's "help", is that Jelly and Peaceful and I are forming a bond, a working alliance.... Muffin also a little though not as strongly.

They know I "know" what's going on and they are valuing my helping them out with the HiHo situation. They look at me with different eyes, more connected eyes, faces that are listening, watching and trusting.... and of course I'm only at the very beginning of things.... I can see this going so much further.

Also, watching these guys with HiHo its so clear that these creatures are not by nature aggressive. Even when HiHo is at his worst, and really annoying the big camels, there are times when they could flatten him, and often appear as if they are about to, but they don't. One day Jelly reared up over HiHo. As his front feet came back toward the ground Jelly intentionally placed his feet either side of HiHo, rather than on him. And I've had similar experiences with some of them, including the time when Google Mama chased me across the field.... not to hurt me as it turned out, but to teach me something.

If a camel is aggressive, and some most definitely are, it is because they have really been provoked, mistreated and abused, protecting young, or defending herd and territory... all of which serve a legitimate purpose. There may be some camels who are just outright aggressive for basically no good reason, but I haven't yet met one. I have heard of one, actually, and my hunch is that this bull was the way he was because his owner had abused him at some point.