Aidan – Subtle but Significant

In this photo, Aidan attempted to enter the pond, but was blocked by Boltz.  I was able to capture a bit of this on video for this week’s Youtube.  Some of these postures may be too subtle to notice, but with Aidan advancing in age, any posturing is significant.  We are still seeing some alliances with the yearlings; Grayson gets preferential treatment from Aidan and Axel seems to be more socially interactive with Denali.  Our biggest concern is the focus that Boltz displays towards Aidan.  If Aidan is showing any anxiety or signs of weakness, Boltz instantly responds by following, doing a face off or if Aidan is really anxious, Boltz attempts to do a ride-up behavior.  Staff protocol is to always greet Aidan as the dominant pack leader first and to watch, but not intervene on rank issues.  Intervening and stopping the rank posturing can often give each wolf confidence that they gained some status and make them more intense in future interactions.  Our best course of action if tension arises is to provide distractions.  Distractions do vary based on the temperature, time since feeding, wind conditions etc., but our list of distractions usually includes ice chunks in the pond, a misting system to keep the wolves cooler, beaver tails, deer legs, bison jerky and miscellaneous hides.