Dec 13, 2025 Puppies and Alpacas
Today a friend of a friend took us to another friend’s ‘lifestyle block’ to visit with puppies and alpacas! A ‘lifestyle block’ in NZ is what we would call a ‘ranchette’, a small property in the country where you can raise a few animals or some vegetables, move away from the city life and have a country life experience.
The owner of this property is raising a litter of 4 Shih-Tzu/Pomeranian puppies! The cutest little puppies!
However, the main attraction is the herd of 34 Alpacas out in the paddocks! One breeding male with about 20 females and 4 newborns in one paddock. Another paddock held the 8 yearling males that are removed to protect them from the alpha breeding male! All but one of the Alpacas had recently been shorn for the fibre (not called wool on alpacas) which is sold for processing and knitting similar to sheep’s wool.
All but one of the herd of females were intently watching one of the Shih-Tzu adult dogs patrolling the perimeter of the paddock! The white alpaca is named Spot and was hand raised, she was least afraid of us and even let us scratch and pet her. Giraffe, the unshorn white and gray Alpaca hid while the rest were herded to the barn for shearing, when she was found she sat down and wouldn’t move, thus avoiding the trauma of a haircut! The other unshorn is the male, at the top left of the top picture. He was just too much to handle so the shearer let him run free!