The AOBA board of directors met in Louisville Kentucky on May 16, 2007 and approved the Alpaca Emphasis Guide. The new guide will be used to train alpaca judges. The purpose of the guide is to help judges consistently prioritize placing points in the alpaca show ring.
The guide identifies the important alpaca traits and catalogues them into three classifications: 1) priority emphasis, 2) moderate emphasis and 3) lesser emphasis. Both fleece and conformation traits are addressed. The emphasis guide also takes into account whether the alpaca is male or female and their age: juvenile, yearling and adult.
The idea for the emphasis guide which has been three years in the making began at a meeting of judges, Amanda Van De Bosh, Jude Anderson, Cameron Holt, Julio Sumar, Cheryl Gehly, and Mike Safley. The idea was proposed as a means of augmenting the AOBA handbook which identifies positive and negative alpaca traits but does not give any guidelines as to their relative importance. The handbook also failed to distinguish the relative importance of traits between younger and older alpacas.

To see the full document on Mike Safley’s web site click here Alpaca Emphasis Guide.
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