Missing Alpaca

Every morning as I grain the alpacas I count them and look them over. I see if they have anything unusual about them such as their gait or dull expression in their eyes. Yesterday I fed the girls and went over my routine mental check list. All was well. I carried the boy's grain to their paddock and as I placed the buckets on the fence I counted each one. 6 total. Huh? I should have 7 boys. I counted again. Then again. I took a deep breath and scanned the paddock. I walked the fence line to see in their shelter. Who was missing? I rechecked. Quito. My first born alpaca. He is a fawn and a little over a year old. I frantically searched the edges of the fence line. No Quito. I am thinking "Great. Someone has an alpaca on their lawn." I ran over to the girl's paddock and counted. Eight. Good. I searched their paddock and shelter. No Quito. I thought he might have escaped and ran over to this paddock to be with his mom.
O.K. Now I am panicking. Is he alone in the woods that surround our farm? Did he wander off and head down the road? I didn't know what to do so I called Sam. As I am explaining, calmly, that our alpaca is gone. I glance to a tree beyond the fence line and lo and behold there he is-Quito standing in the shade craning his neck to reach a leaf from the oak tree. I felt my stomach fall. Whew. I didn't see him there because he was in the shade where it is quite dark. I should have expected that he would not wander off. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly. Thankfully he is safe and back with his buddies Delphine and Goyo.