RE: Help needed with new trio

[a llama]

Before I start talking about bonding progress, I have been forgetting to ask about why Annabelle gets protective every time I put my hands anywhere near her food. Most of the time she gets this way only while she is eating, but she will lunge at my hand while making a loud grunting noise if I try touching her food, even when I am actually GIVING her the food, she will still lunge at my hand and knock the food all over the floor. I have found that the only exception to this behavior is when she gladly eats pellets out of my hand while there is none left in her bowl. Is this some sort of variation to being fully cage territorial?

Anyway, here is Oreo’s and Annabelle’s last session summary:
~ This took place about 3 days after their previous session due to a big rainstorm.
~ In the beginning, I started off by petting them for most of the time they were actually interacting, but I gradually gave them an increasing amount of opportunities to interact without my intervention.
~ Oreo flopped over with his feet behind him around 3/4 the way into the session to have a rest, and Annabelle did the same while I was petting them during a head war.
~ Oreo’s spraying didn’t come immediately this time , however he did spray Annabelle a few times after he lost their first head war about 5 minutes into the session.
~ This session was very similar to the last session, except that during the first hour or so, head wars on average lasted about 15-30 seconds (much shorter than what has been happening in previous sessions). Also, they were both much more “expressive” about their feelings to losing a head war, meaning that the chance of Oreo actually grooming Annabelle was pretty small in comparison to how many times he would spray her instead (again, thankfully Annabelle isn’t bothered by the spraying) And Annabelle was also noticeably trying much harder to assert her dominance this time, as when I decided to stop petting them and give them a chance to have uninterrupted interaction, she would be pretty quick to nip Oreo on the forehead if he was just standing still not grooming her or if he tried shoving his head under her.
~ About a couple hours into the session, they were starting to lose energy and became tired from all the activity so far, which then caused their head wars to go back to lasting minutes at a time. However, Annabelle was not appreciating how Oreo was now loafing every time he became bored of all the head squishing, so she started nipping him every time she noticed his lack of interest in her demanding requests to be groomed. Usually Oreo would just jump back in surprise and continue loafing while I calmed him down with my petting, but in some cases, even though it seemed like Annabelle was obviously trying to nip him, she would actually “violently” nibble on Oreo’s fur for a second or two before she would continue shoving her head under Oreo. As a last resort, after all her attempts at trying to convince Oreo to groom her had failed, she would decide to mount him and start chasing him when he tried to run away, which caused an almost immediate increase in aggression which lead to circling, grunting and eventually lunging. Annabelle mounted Oreo and caused this increase of aggression only two times in the session, but in both cases I decided that a full separation was necessary to calm them enough so that they were able to continue calmly interacting further during the rest of the session. These separations only had to last about a minute or two while I was calming them with some petting, but eventually they got there and were easily able to forgive each other when they were ready.
~ I ended the session after about 4 and a half hours when Oreo had just groomed Annabelle.

At this point I am assuming that they are currently having difficulty determining who will be dominant over the other, which is why they are still being “aggressive” towards each other. If my assumption is correct, do you think there is anything I can do that can help dominance become a little clearer to them? (Annabelle is obviously the dominant one, Oreo is having a hard time accepting that) You mentioned that keeping up with a daily bonding schedule can speed things up in terms of progression, so I will try a little harder to achieve at least something close to this goal. And just as a note, Oreo is now acting pretty casually when it comes to being in Annabelle’s territory, as I think he has finally stopped spraying when I switch their items from their cages like blankies and litter boxes.