PORTLAND — For more than an hour, Caesar stood inside Albany’s Waverly Elementary as a stream of children, parents and teachers lined up for hugs and photos.
He scratched his leg a few times, yawned at least twice but never seemed bothered by the crowd he had attracted inside Mrs. Swanson’s classroom. The llama was stoic.
This is how Caesar the No Drama Llama has earned his moniker.
Nothing gets under his fluff.
Caesar’s handler is Larry McCool, who owns Mystic Llama Farm in Jefferson, Ore. He’s been raising llamas for 22 years and founded the Llama Fiber Cooperative of North America.
McCool has 14 other llamas, which he raises for fleece on his 5-acre property.
But Caesar is unique.
“I’ve been to many, many shows around the country, I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of llamas, and I’ve never seen a llama that has the personality and the love that (Caesar) has for people,” McCool said. “He is just bulletproof, he can handle anything. We go into schools and we go into nursing homes, and he’s hugged by 50 first-graders at the same time. And he’s so patient, he’ll stand there all day long and let them hug him.”
McCool first got a sense of Caesar’s unique people skills at the 2016 Oregon State Fair. While exhibiting his llama, McCool noticed how affectionate Caesar was with visitors who wanted to pose for photos.
“So I started just taking him around to events,” he said. “I went to a lot of events in the Salem area. Then in September of last year, we went to a political event for a friend who was running for Marion County commissioner, and all of sudden, Caesar just took off. That’s when he became Caesar the No Drama Llama.”
In 2018, Caesar got a social media presence and some marketing help. But things really took off in February 2019, when Caesar was spied riding a MAX train in Portland.
“That was by accident. We were just trying to get to the convention center. We were going to Comic-Con,” McCool said. “It was raining, it was 11 blocks, so I thought, what the heck, I jumped on the MAX train. Someone took a picture, The Oregonian got a copy of it, and once it got in The Oregonian, it went viral.”
About two years ago, McCool retired from his day job with Hewlett-Packard, and Caesar’s celebrity has become close to a full-time project.
“I spend $500 a month just on gas taking him to events, but it’s a labor of love,” McCool said. “It became my passion and what we do to give back to people.”
Caesar’s exploits aren’t a money-generating affair, McCool said. They visit schools, nursing homes and community events at no charge. He said they attend private events at the request of a donation being made to charity.
And while we are loathe to interject politics into a story about a llama, it should be known that Caesar is, through a spokesperson, a self-identified Democrat. The llama frequently turns up for candidates and progressive causes. He’s attended two women’s marches, Red for Ed rallies, Planned Parenthood events, and has been seen snuggling up to Gov. Kate Brown. His social media page refers to this as “llama activism.”
On this particular December evening, there’s no politics involved. Caesar was preparing to attend literacy night at Waverly Elementary.
Caesar gets a hot shower once every three weeks. Before events, he’s brushed, blow dried and fluffed – given essentially a llama salon blowout – a procedure that can take up to two hours. Then it’s into the trailer and off to class.
At 5 years old, Caesar is in his prime. Most llamas live about 20 years, McCool said. With any luck, Caesar will become a daddy in 2021, and his offspring will inherit his friendly personality.
“He does know he’s special,” McCool said. “He looks at the camera. When the camera is in front of him, he poses for pictures. We’ll do up to 1,000 photos a day with him.”
And it’s true. The llama does seem to pose. Several times over the course of an evening, he walked up to a reporter’s video camera and stopped a foot from the lens. Then he just stood there. Staring.
When children wrap their arms around his neck, Caesar stares straight ahead.
When babies reach out a hand grasping toward his face, Caesar doesn’t flinch.
When adults pull out cameras with flashes, Caesar poses.
Caesar doesn’t seem to mind all the attention from fans, but his eye always comes back to McCool. He nuzzles his handler, giving llama kisses to McCool’s bearded cheek.
“He is so majestic,” McCool said. “He has never been taught to do anything. This is all just his natural ability, natural instinct, that’s what makes him so unusual.”
