Animal news: Llama on the loose!

I have a certain affinity for llamas, thanks to my repeated viewings of “The Yorkshire Vet.”

You may be surprised to hear there are llamas in Yorkshire. I was. But, yes, there are llamas in Yorkshire. One delightful woman runs a llama trekking business; other people have llamas as pets. And llamas, just like any other animal, can get themselves into all sorts of medical trouble and require doctoring.

Personally I prefer alpacas for their extraordinary fluffy cuteness, but if offered a llama, I’ll take him. (The vet term for helping an alpaca give birth is “unpacking.”)

So I glommed immediately onto the story of Gizmo, the llama escapee who leaped over a fence in Bedford Corners, New York, described by the New York Times as “a wealthy, equestrian pocket of Westchester County…”

I’ve got a weird, glamorous story about Bedford but not now. Because now there is Gizmo. Here’s his description:

Gizmo, whose coat is a patchwork of white and brown spots and whose face wears a permanent expression of mild offense, had arrived only the day before his disappearance, from Fairland, Indiana, just southeast of Indianapolis. He came with his best friend, a blondish llama named Sandman, whose unusual hair resembles the fronds of a mop.

The county turned out to locate Gizmo (great name for a llama, or anything, really) and he was eventually “wrangled” and returned home to Sandman.

Scroll through the story to see pictures of the team that recaptured Gizmo, the woman who owns him, Gizmo himself and his pal Sandman, who indeed has an extended mop as his winter coat.

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