malik – Jul 16, 2010 12:00 AM

Malik has certainly increased his social interactions since Shadow's retirement. This includes interacting on the den site with Shadow, but also more tolerance for staff that used to intimidate him. One benefit of retirement is the fact that a wolf can sleep all day long with no programming obligations, and Malik and Shadow are both showing a tendency to get long rest periods during the day. The only disturbance they have is when the temperatures increase and staff turn on a misting hose over their enclosure. Both wolves seem to enjoy standing in the mist and cooling off. But, don't assume 10-year old wolves are beyond trouble. Between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, one of the retired wolves (we assume Malik, only because he has a history of hose biting), managed to get the sprinkler hose, and shredded the hose into several parts. A new hose was installed on Monday, with some restraints to keep it out of reach.