Boltz – A Sideward Glance

We just completed a training for the wolf care staff to help us remain attentive to behavioral changes in the upcoming year.  We are always cognitive of behavior, but in the upcoming year, we have two circumstances that happen to be occurring simultaneously in the winter/spring of 2018.  The first is the yearling pups, Axel and Grayson, will be maturing to full adults at the age of 2, which usually means a bit more testing behavior.  The second event is that our pack leader, Aidan, will be reaching 10 years of age.  During the training, we discussed our historical yearling behavior that we experienced with the 1989, 1993, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 litters and looked for behavioral cues that are important to document and in some cases may require a modified handling technique.  We have less data for which to draw details about pack leader changes since we have only had MacKenzie and Lucas as the dominant pair deposed in 2002 and a pack leader change initiated by a management decision to remove Shadow in 2010.  Boltz is definitely on our radar to watch for the obvious eye contact and following behavior that might tell us that his focus is intensifying on Aidan.  Fortunately, one can’t focus on much with the pups near by, as soon as one of the wolves looks interested in something, a yearling comes over to see what’s up.