grizzer – Nov 12, 2007 12:00 AM

One notable behavior that started last week was the increase in associative behavior between Maya and Shadow. It is typical that the dominant pair goes through a pair bonding ritual during the height of the breeding season, and even with spayed and neutered wolves, this behavior is still present. How does this influence Grizzer? There are two factors that create a change in Grizzer, the first is that Shadow gains confidence with the support he receives from Maya, making him more assertive over Grizzer. The second factor, is that Maya’s pair bonding behavior is stimulated by a hormone rush. In the absence of a second female, she asserts her added hormonal dominance focus on her littermate, Grizzer. When Maya gets excited, she pins Grizzer to the ground and Shadow and Malik are right there to get some status over Grizzer. Which explains the photo for this week, Grizzer showing less status by doing a standing urination rather than a raised leg urination (RLU). In the wild, it’s usually only the dominant male that does and RLU since marking behavior has more important role of defending territory, but in captivity, all of our males will present an RLU dependent upon their confidence at any given time. In Grizzer’s video, you still see him following Malik, but as Malik’s behavior demonstrates, it’s at a much calmer rate