lakota – Jun 2, 2008 12:00 AM

Thanks to the many people who have been sending emails concerning Lakota's health and adjustment after the surgery and MacKenzie's death. She did have a difficult time, and was off food for nearly 10 days. The Vet did a complete blood panel to rule out any medical issues, which left us with the expected, psychological seperation anxiety. To overcome this, we have been giving Lakota free reign of the Retired enclosure and the pack holding area. In the pack holding area, she is allowed to go nose to nose with the Exhibit Pack and the wolf pups when they are in the wolf yard. She has delivered food to Maya and is very keyed into to Maya's whines. We thought long and hard about letting her rejoin the Exhibit Pack since they are so calm from the prolactin, but we still can't be sure that Malik wouldn't take advantage of her. He is the only wolf that exhibits high tail when Lakota is at the gate. We also thought that it would be more traumatic for her to let her in for the next two months, only to remove her again when the Exhibit Pack goes through the hormonal change from prolactin in the summer to testosternone in the winter. We are certain that she would be the target of dominance from the pack as well as the growing pups. So, for now, she gets free reign to come and go in the two enclosures, and when the pups are secured in the lab, she can come out into the wolf yard and hang out by the lab door and by the bleachers. We will continue to offer her staff time, and visits from the curator's dog. We have ordered new video editing software and hope to resume video of the individual wolves by next week.