Malik and Shadow did extremely well with the work projects. They were temporarily moved into the pack holding area and showed very little intimidation or bark howling on Saturday. On Sunday, Shadow did a bit of bark howling, but overall, they were very tolerant of the work.
We have had a tough week in retirement. Late last week we identified some diarrhea issues, initially with Malik, but then a few days later with Shadow. Since it was only these two individuals that seemed to be affected, we ruled out a food issue. Grizzer gets the same food resources and he had no issues. A consultation with the veterinarians revealed that there was a viral gastrointestinal bug going around the dog community and it appears that Shadow and Malik have a case of the crud. With viral infections, there isn't much of a treatment and it has typically be lasting 6- 7 days. We treated their symptoms with some anti-diarrhea medication, made sure they were hydrated and offered food whenever they started to show interest. Malik improved by the 6th day and ate ~ 10 lbs of chicken.
The logs will be the same this week. We had snow on Monday that required a lot of effort to gain access to all the gates, water containers and dens. Thanks to Danielle and Linda for helping in that Monday morning check. We also had to redistribute straw beds for all the enclosures, a task that can only be appreciated during the spring Working for Wolves program when we have to remove all that straw. We are very pleased that Shadow and Malik are back to their usual invite chase behaviors and both have fully recovered from the gastrointestinal virus that occurred a few weeks ago. Grizzer is more social than ever and staff continue to have relaxing checks on a daily basis. Most of the extreme sub-zero weather is behind us and even if we do have a cold night, the days warm up quickly. Rank order traits are starting to emerge in the Exhibit Pack with Luna showing Denali that she will jaw spar despite his over-towering height advantage. Fortunately for Luna, Aidan watches from and pins Denali if things get a little intense. Spring fever starts kicking in for staff and wolves alike as the warm days of March seem to stimulate some strong social behavior (at least for the wolves).
The logs will be the same this week. We had snow on Monday that required a lot of effort to gain access to all the gates, water containers and dens. Thanks to Danielle and Linda for helping in that Monday morning check. We also had to redistribute straw beds for all the enclosures, a task that can only be appreciated during the spring Working for Wolves program when we have to remove all that straw. We are very pleased that Shadow and Malik are back to their usual invite chase behaviors and both have fully recovered from the gastrointestinal virus that occurred a few weeks ago. Grizzer is more social than ever and staff continue to have relaxing checks on a daily basis. Most of the extreme sub-zero weather is behind us and even if we do have a cold night, the days warm up quickly. Rank order traits are starting to emerge in the Exhibit Pack with Luna showing Denali that she will jaw spar despite his over-towering height advantage. Fortunately for Luna, Aidan watches from and pins Denali if things get a little intense. Spring fever starts kicking in for staff and wolves alike as the warm days of March seem to stimulate some strong social behavior (at least for the wolves).
Sorry for the break between log postings, the daily tasks of managing wolves on frequent feeding schedules and dealing with the icy conditions of spring melt seemed to dominate my time this week. I did make a trip to another cooperative wildlife project that had some spare roadkill and added five deer to the freezer. This certainly helps. I would like to thank all of you who sent a donation during this time of food shortage and who honored the pups during their birthday. I am extremely appreciative and humbled by the sincere support of our ambassador wolves. I know that the educational mission is accomplished when people take the time to connect with these ambassador wolves. Aidan is doing well, he seems to still assert some status over Denali, but things are calming a bit. There is no indication of the Discoid Lupus condition that was an issue last winter, maybe the pups are good for the immune system.
Denali has a behavioral pattern very similar to Grizzer when he was an Exhibit Pack member. Denali doesn't seem to show much leadership over the pups and the pups don't seem to have much respect for Denali. Grizzer displayed the same behavior (or lack thereof for Aidan and Denali when they were pups) and it became a problem when Denali reached two years of age and seemed to want to climb some status over Grizzer. It will be interesting to see if Boltz has that same tendency or if Aidan's control over Boltz will help Denali.
We don't have much to say about Grizzer other than we enjoy his company, he is always animated and alert and he has a strong social interaction with most of the wolf care staff. He's been very observant of Malik and seems to be a bit obsessed with any dominance that Shadow may display over Malik. There's a reason why the enclosures don't have a shared fenceline.
Luna is very mobile and warmer temperatures have increased her mobility. We have had a lot of ice as the daytime warm melts snow and the nightime cold freezes it. We are leaving the straw on the snow to help with traction. Staff have been commenting on the fact that Luna seems to have a lot of raven's around her when she feeds. The ravens will walk right up to Luna watching and staring, waiting for her to drop a morsel of food. They seem to be more cautious of the other wolves (rightfully so, Aidan recently killed a raven), but they don't seem to sense much threat from Luna.
We have observed some very compatible resting behavior between Malik and Shadow, with them sleeping comfortably both on top of the den and inside the den. The straw has a significant amount of depth to the layers on the den, and it might work in the wolves favor to insulate the ice for a while keeping them cool on a warm spring day. I did acquire 5 roadkill so all wolves go back to a larger carcass feeding in the next week, this will be a good stimulus for Shadow and even more things for Malik to possess.
As we reported in Malik's log, they both caught a bug of some type, but Shadow seems to be taking longer to recover. He did finally eat about 5 lbs of beef yesterday and we hope he returns back to his chin resting, invite chasing self soon. These wolves will both turn 13 years of age in May, and at this age, any issue is a major concern. I do believe that Shadow, as the dominant leader of the Exhibit Pack for nearly 8 years, probably has more underlying health issue related to stress. Staff have increased their observation periods and we anticipate an improvement by the weekend.
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