Regional competition draws 329 entries

Sure, dogs can fetch sticks, cats can curl up with you on the couch and you can ride horses.

But can they count?

La Bandit, Deborah Slocum's llama, can.

The Medford woman raises one finger, and La Bandit lifts a hoof and scratches once. Two fingers draw two scratches.

That kind of intelligence is just one of the things Slocum adores about llamas.

"Take a look at that face," she answers when asked why she'd want a llama for a pet. "Their personalities are like a cross between a dog and a cat," she adds, noting that they retain knowledge like dogs and are slow to trust like cats.

Slocum and dozens of other llama lovers spent the weekend at the Jackson County Expo competing in the Alpaca and Llama Show Association's Western Regional Championships.

The annual event drew 329 entries trying to move on to the national event next month in Columbia, Mo.

The weekend was ostensibly about competition, with participants showing off their animals' attributes or leading them through courses of hay bales, tires and other obstacles. But it was also a chance to ogle each other's llamas and share the joys of owning the unique animals.

For Slocum, Sunday marked her first full year of llama ownership.

"I've wanted a llama for 20 years," she says, recounting how she fell in love with the animals while working at a bed and breakfast in Colorado.

But as a single mother of three who lives in Medford, it took some time to muster the money to buy one and find a place to keep it. She boards hers with Doug and Darlene Meyer, without whom she says she couldn't have La Bandit.

She visits her llama daily, training and getting to know it. It took just three shows for La Bandit to qualify for the regionals.

Another contestant, Heather Koenig of Corvallis, has been walking llamas almost as long as she's been walking, says the 8-year-old's mother, Julie Koenig.

The blonde in pigtails has been waiting to be old enough to enter llama competitions. Earlier this year, she was the grand champion junior llama handler at the Oregon State Fair, beating out competitors as old as 14. She got her own llama as her 6th birthday present and named it Percolator, Perky for short.

She says some days of training are easier than others.

"Some things he'll just do and some things he just won't," she says.

So what's the best thing about llamas?

"They make good pets," the young girl says.

Dan Milton, one of the event's organizers, agrees with that. He and his wife have about 50 of the animals on their Jacksonville ranch, Highland Llamas.

He says although only young children can ride them, llamas are good pack animals and popular pets.

"People (who like llamas) don't want a horse because it's too big, and they don't want a dog, and this is something young kids can handle," he says.

But beyond that, the animal's calm demeanor (despite popular perception, he says they don't spit at people unless mistreated) is a big attraction.

"There's something about the animal," he says. "Once you have one, you want more."

That's what's happened with Medford's Ginger Casto, who owns Cloud Top Llama Ranch on West Griffin Creek Road. She says she grew up around animals -- horses and rabbits, mostly. When she got a place large enough to have animals again just over a year ago, she went for llamas in a big way -- buying 13 of them. She says they are very peaceful and make wonderful companions.

"They are really smart," she says, "much smarter than horses. You show a llama something two or three times and they've got it.