maya – Jul 4, 2004 12:00 AM

Today Maya is 60 days old. During the early morning hours, Maya attempted to cache some ground beef on Nyssa. She placed it on her stomach and then tried to push it into Nyssa's belly with her nose Today staff started introducing a dog brush to comb their fur. We also started putting a mock "ear ointment" (Vaseline) on their ears. Since daily wolf care during the year will require being brushed and placing fly ointment on their ears, we are working gradually to get the pups acclimated to this kind of care and the various objects (brush, ointment containers, etc.)in our hands. These things are being done both when they are sleeping and awake, in order to get them used to being touched in specific areas. Maya has been very active in the enclosure, playing with Nyssa & Grizz and initiating dominance attempts. Today she grabbed a toy ball and ran to the trees to play with it. Maya has been much more affectionate and submissive towards staff. She exhibited submissive roll-overs in front of staff several times this morning. During the morning program, Maya chewed on a deer hide and became very vocal when Grizz or Nyssa tried to take it away from her. During the afternoon program, she was kept occupied with a rubber Kong stuffed with ground hamburger. She also likes venison "popsicles", which are pieces of frozen deer hide/ears frozen in ice. These appear to cool her off in hot weather.