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Domingo Pianezzi, a Peruvian surfer, is something of an expert at teaching pets to hang ten. He’s spent the last ten years training dogs to surf with him – even competing internationally in competitions for people and their surfing dogs. It was at one of these competitions, in Australia, that he got the idea to surf with an Alpaca. ”I’ve surfed with a dog, a parrot, a hamster and a cat, but when I was at a competition in Australia I saw people surfing with kangaroos and koalas,” Pianezzi explains. ”So I thought that, as a Peruvian, it would be interesting to surf with a unique animal that represents Peru.”
Peruvians raise alpacas, a species of South American camelid (the same biological family as camels and llamas), primarily for their warm wool and occasionally for their meat. Alpacas, and their wool, are an important part of the Peruvian culture. This particular alpaca, Pisco, named for another classic part of Peruvian culture, a liquor distilled from grapes, is the first to ever set foot on a surfboard.
Some of Pianezzi’s neighbors in the beach town of San Bartolo don’t think that taking Pisco, whose natural habitat is the high mountain ranges of Peru, into the water as a good thing. Others see him as an innovator. Pisco hasn’t yet decided which camp he’s in. While he is getting used to the water, and will sit calmly on the board with Pianezzi for longer and longer periods of time, he has yet to complete a full ride without jumping off the board.
