Rooster Joins the Camels

A rooster was recently dumped on the property here and I brought him out to the Sacred Camel Gardens where he quickly set up his roost.

He’s an interesting guy, dropped off because he’d obviously been a challenging character for his previous humans. I quickly noticed his sharp intelligence, and that he simply felt mis-understood and disrespected by humans. The people where he’d come from didn’t know how to relate to roosters, or just didn’t have the patience or time.

I began relating to him just as I do with the camels and horses, and he very quickly started settling down, relaxing and respecting me and the boundaries I expected. Within a few sessions he stopped challenging me. And now when I sit with the camels the rooster comes over and sits beside me, sometimes almost on my lap. He sits and “zones out”, just wanting to share space and keep company. He quickly went from not trusting any humans at all to starting to trust some…

He also very quickly included himself among the camels. They like him, and he likes them. He spends the bulk of his day with them.

As time goes on he’s starting to respect other human visitors to the camels as well, depending on their energy and body language.

A lot of people don’t know how to relate well to roosters or camels, horses, dogs or cats, or pretty much anything a little wild and vital. Relating responsibly to any animal basically comes down to the same few basic principles, summarized clearly by Cesar Milan in his approach to working with dogs – that of being “calmly assertive”.

Today I included the rooster in some camel training preparations with several young kids, Jessie, Ari and Lucy, teaching them about the “calm assertive” principle of relating to animals. Each of the girls quickly found they were able to move the rooster about simply through invoking a calm assertive and benevolent energy. The rooster fell right in with them once he felt and trusted their intention.

So this lucky rooster, with the new name of “Gusta”, has found a happy home here where he’s learning to trust people and where he’s also effectively teaching them a little about themselves and how to relate to non-humans benignly, clearly and firmly.

And now, at the Sacred Camel Gardens, before anyone can even start to train with the camels, one of the pre-requisites is that they be able to interact effectively with Gusta !