AMBER ISAAC: Oh, there we go! She’s kind
of like having a big dog, but she doesn’t run around and bark.
COMM: Tiny house alpaca Cody is a little different
from the rest, not least because of her fancy dress wardrobe.
AMBER ISAAC: Cody wants treats? I dress her
up on different holidays, you know, and they just, people just love her. We’ve done New
Year’s, we’ve done Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, 4th of July.
She’s got a whole trunk full of wigs and hats and glasses and all that. “Okay, ready?
Oh, look how pretty!”
COMM: Cody has always lived indoors with owner
and alpaca farmer, Amber.
AMBER ISAAC: She’s almost two years old
and she’s been primarily a house alpaca. I think there’s been three nights that she
ever spent out in the barn. At night I ask her if she’s ready to go to bed and she
goes right over to the stairway and she, you know, I’ll go upstairs and she’ll follow
me right up the stairs, and she loves bedtime. She sleeps there all night. In the morning
I do have to carry her down the stairs. Right, Cody? “Yes!”
COMM: Life got off to a rough start for Cody,
who was born a month early.
AMBER ISAAC: So when Cody was born, she was
only 6.5 lbs. Most alpaca babies are 15 to 20 lbs. When the mama gave birth, she didn’t
actually realise she’d given birth and walked away. And twice she almost stepped on the
baby! So, I picked her up, brought her inside, let mom out with her friends. Her mom didn’t
even notice that she was gone. Today she is about 52 lbs. Most babies at a year and a
half, two years old have become mature and they are over 100 lbs.
COMM: Having hand-reared Cody since birth,
Amber has a close relationship with the alpaca.
AMBER ISAAC: She’s the closest thing I’m
gonna have to a daughter. Cody and I have a very strong bond, I mean, obviously she
depends on me to take care of her and, you know, any time we go outside she’s right
on my, right on my hip.
COMM: Today there’s a very special delivery on the farm.
AMBER ISAAC: We are going to help an alpaca
mama give birth! So we’ve got a good start, what you want are two feet and a nose. And
breathing is always good! Okay, we’re almost out. Here we go! There we go. And now that
he’s on the ground, he’s moving around, he’s, you know, he’s breathing, he’s
and, Cody was breathing, but there wasn’t all this activity. She just was kind of there
and weak. Right, Cody? I know, I know you was a good helper! I see, you helped, yes!
She’s enriched my life beyond what I can have ever thought.
COMM: It’s unlikely that she’ll ever grow
to full size or live with the herd, but Cody’s story has won her a fan base.
AMBER ISAAC: I started putting up pictures
and people started really getting into following and cheering her on. And she actually ended
up on the news, ‘cause we weren’t sure if she was the smallest baby born in Colorado,
and a lot of people took a personal interest.
COMM: She’s even the subject of a children’s book.
AMBER ISAAC: Because she’s so small and
so different from everybody else, I wanted to use that to help reach kids who might feel
different. Kids who feel left out, kids who are bullied, kids who have special needs.
I have a client who has a niece, who has dwarfism. She can really relate with Cody being teeny
tiny and feeling she doesn’t quite fit in. And the message of Cody’s book is: “Everybody
has something that makes them different! If being different is who you really are, then
that’s a wonderful thing!”