malik – Sep 24, 2007 12:00 AM

In this week’s photo, you will see Malik doing a threat display to Grizzer. Maya intently watches, and only gets involved if the excitement level escalates. This was a short, but noisy dominance ritual, that was likely caused by some anxiety over holding pen use and a large truck in the wolf yard that delivered rocks. Initially, we thought Grizzer started this dominance, but as we go through the photos, it appears that Malik went after Shadow, with Grizzer on Shadow, then switching to Malik. There was one bite wound behind Malik’s shoulder and on Grizzer’s muzzle. As a precaution and because Malik is nearing 8 years old, he was started on anti-biotic. The wolf care staff is very aware of the negative influence of activity in the wolf yard, and is doing a significant amount of planning to reduce the stress as much as possible, yet be able to get the necessary work done.