Placement, fitting and cinching, including breastplate.

Pack saddles, when well-designed and properly fitted, are quite comfortable for a Llama to wear and carry weight with for long periods of time. However, even the best-designed Saddle can cause serious discomfort and permanent physical damage to a llama if that saddle is placed and fitted incorrectly — even if little or no weight is carried, and even if the period of time seems short to the human (who is not wearing the pack!).

It's our job to make sure that any pack saddle fits comfortably and stays in place humanely each and every time we saddle up our Llamas. Llamas have incredibly good memories, and even a single, short experience — if unpleasant enough — can lead them to associate discomfort with pack saddles for a very long time afterwards.

Although this video is ten minutes long, the actual process of saddling a llama correctly and carefully takes vastly less time, particularly after the saddle cinches and straps have been properly fitted to the individual llama.

The basic principles shown apply to ALL saddles and ALL llamas (including llamas shorn to the skin for showing). Please understand that this video could not include the breeching, other saddle makes, other llamas, or many details of saddle selection due to YouTube video length constraints. For complete, detailed information on llama pack saddles and saddle fitting, please go to www.llamaprints.com for the publication, "Evaluating a Llama Pack for Comfort and Function" by Gwen Ingram.