denali – Nov 20, 2010 12:00 AM

On Friday morning, Denali challenged Grizzer to a dominance fight during wolf care. There were a combination of factors that contributed to this challenge. It was an extremely windy day, which always increases the wolves anxiety. There has been a stray husky running loose in the area, with tracks in the parking lot and around the back of the wolf yard near the freezer. We also had an overnight group with some excitable voices in the parking lot that morning. All of these factors combined with the existing tension of some dominance testing pushed the challenge by Denali. As with all wolf challenges, we watch and don't intervene due to the concern that if we stop it, we might give both wolves the psychological idea that they both won, causing them to engage more intensely the next time. In order for the rank order to be settled, one wolf has to be the clear winner. The initial challenge lasted about 6 minutes, then ended for the day. They started again after dark, and by morning on Saturday, the pack was calm, and it was clear that Grizzer maintained his dominance. Denali was extremely calm, and came into holding with no issues. We are currently holding Denali in the pack holding area for the weekend to give Grizzer a chance to heal a bit, and will reunite the pack on Monday. There's always a risk in holding a wolf off that they won't accept him back in, but we had to make the hard choice to give Grizzer's stitches a few days of healing.