malik – Oct 18, 2004 12:00 AM

Malik has been getting attention from Shadow as the cooler weather approaches. This is a normal time of year for wolves to begin asserting dominance over one-another. The information specialist observed the following: After my 4pm program I noticed some interesting behavior: We observed what looked to have started out as playing between Malik and Shadow. They were wrestling and standing up against each other while biting. I looked away for half a minute and when I looked back, Shadow had Malik on the ground on his back, the pups where milling around them. When Malik got up, he was in a very defensive stance with his tail wrapped under him, body hunched, hackles up, head down, ears back and teeth bared. Shadow continued to nip at him and the pups got involved as well – kind of mobbing but the pups weren't as persistent as Shadow. After about a minute, Malik took off and Shadow began chasing him (the pups followed but, distracted themselves with each other). This lasted approximately 1-2 minutes. Then the situation seemed to diffuse.