I will do a full narrative of the introduction on Youtube this week (should be posted by Friday), but I had several requests to do an update on the pups, so I am posting these logs today. Luna's first day in the pack was active as you can tell by her weight loss on the 30th and 31st of July. She was very active in the Exhibit, running and exploring the upper enclosure and showing very little interest in submitting to the adults. Aidan made many attempts to get Luna to stop and submit. He used stand overs, foreleg stabs, scruff bites and chin rests, and eventually got Luna to greet in a submissive posture. Luna is not intimidated by the adults and has had several observations of her doing a threat display over food driving off both Aidan and Denali. Based on her ear postures, she seems far more dominant than Boltz in all interactions. The adults have not shown any focus on her right leg, and while she's a bit stiff sometimes, she has no mobility issues. The pups are feeding on beaver and deer carcasses in the enclosure, preferring this to the hand fed options we are offering. The biggest struggle is trying to ensure that Luna gets her daily supplement. She is very independent when on the Exhibit and only comes to staff on her terms. <br><br> Luna's weights in the last week<br> Date, Days Old, Weight in Pounds<br> <li>7/27/2012 125 36.82<li> 7/28/2012 126 38.14<li> 7/29/2012 127 38.36<li> 7/30/2012 128 37.8<li> 7/31/2012 129 37.04<li> 8/1/2012 130 38.3<li> 8/2/2012 131 38.8
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While grooming Grizzer on Tuesday, we discovered a very soft, pliable growth. We videoed the site, and consulted with the vets. They thought it might be an abscess (due to the fact that he showed a pain response to it being touched), and we are checking it to see if it opens on it's own or decreases. This could be from a twig, scratch or it might be in response to bug bites. I can report that it is much smaller today and he allowed me to inspect it without concern. My bet is that it's a bug bite considering the rainy weather has been good for a crop of mosquitoes.
It's interesting that the topic of Aidan and Denali's logs is the fact that Denali takes advantage of Aidan when Aidan's anxious. The exact same behavior happened in retirement on Wednesday. I was trying to get some fly ointment on the tips of Shadow's ears and I momentarily restrained him. This resulted in a whine of protest from Shadow and within seconds, Malik was doing a ride-up behavior with a high tail. He continues to test Shadow today (3 days later), and Shadow is holding his ground. This is why we have resorted to only using spray for these two wolves. Every other wolf here allows us to put on fly ointment, but we start with using Vaseline on their ears when they're very young. Shadow and Malik didn't have that conditioning, and tend to avoid even approaching when they see the container.
Denali still seems to respond in a submissive posture to Aidan, but there are times when he attempts a bit of dominance. Our preference is that Aidan takes the lead with the pup introduction as he has better qualities of leadership and dominance than Denali. Denali is much more about chasing and wrestling behaviors, which might be a good outlet for Boltz, but doesn't do much for establishing boundaries in the pack.
It is always hard to predict how an individual wolf will act when they meet pups. Denali appears to have a lot of high excitement, running along the fence and wagging his tail, especially if Oscar and Boltz are wrestling. For those of you who may have been around the Center's operation in 2008, you may recall another wolf who appeared to socially engage more than discipline. Grizzer was the instigator of play behavior with the pups and while that made the pups comfortable, we know that when they reached 2 years of age, they didn't respect Grizzer's rank. It will be interesting to see how Denali responds.
Aidan was the first to meet the adults in the pack holding area. Unfortunately for Aidan, we had a wind storm the night before the intro and he was quite intimidated. His first response was to run from the pups, doing muzzle bites towards them as they were very actively food begging. For all the regurgitation prior to the introduction, we were surprised that we didn't witness anything when they were physically together. Aidan clearly assumed a leadership role and Boltz continually submitted to him, although Luna didn't. It's not that Luna was intimidated or avoided the adults, she just wouldn't submit. When the pack was released in the Exhibit, Luna ran throughout the upper enclosure. Both adults were actively chasing her and Aidan made several attempts to get her to stop and submit. It was a tense few hours for staff as Luna wouldn't slow down. By the second day, Aidan was bringing the pups food and Luna seemed much calmer, which kept the pack much calmer. Luna's excited behavior can really change the dynamics. At this point, Aidan is clearly guarding the pups from Denali, and we will likely see some dynamics between these two as winter approaches.
Denali is acting just like Grizzer during a pup introduction. When Denali came into the pack holding area, he made no effort to show any dominance behavior towards the pups, but instead, ran along side as if he were a pup himself. The biggest issue we have with Denali is that he is a bit food possessive and makes it a challenge to feed the pups. Aidan respects the pups possessions, delivers them food and doesn't try to take food from them, Denali is the opposite. With the pups reluctant to feed when moved off the Exhibit (they are anxious to be separated from the adults), we have to feed sufficient amounts of deer or beaver to allow the pups to satiate and compensate for Denali's consumption. Fortunately, Luna can drive Denali off a carcass and defend it.
We can't forget the impact this pup introduction has had on Grizzer. He has been moved from the pack holding area at least 6 times on the days leading to the introduction and certainly on introduction day. He's been pretty calm, but he spends a lot of time investigating the scents of the pups as well as Aidan and Denali. I had expected far more intimidation with Denali and Aidan in holding, but Grizzer showed limited issues with them. In fact, Aidan ran over to Grizzer early in the introduction as the pups were chasing him. It appeared that he would have gone right into Grizzer's habitat if the gate was open. Neither Aidan or Denali showed any high tail intimidation towards Grizzer, which is much different than how Grizzer responds to Malik. Aidan and Denali never challenged Grizzer or really kicked him out of the Exhibit. We moved Grizzer because he was losing confidence, but we made the move before they did challenge him. This means, in Aidan and Denali's view, Grizzer never lost status to them, therefore, they don't posture towards him. This is a good scenario when we are likely to need to use the pack holding area to hold the Exhibit Pack prior to feedings.
At the end of the Behavioral Observation week, I asked the team members to write a paragraph about their impression of the individual wolves. The following logs were written by Behavioral Team Members:<br> Pat Middleton<br> Wendy Watson<br> Cheri Ward<br> "This week, Luna was observed to be a strong confident pup with no fear. After the first day of the introduction, she did finally submit to Aidan and was later seen during the week to have strong social interactions with Aidan. She also has a strong predatory drive as is evident with stalking, ambushes, pouncing and head shaking behavior. She is very good at picking her moments to engage in the pack play sequences to ambush and stalk." <br. Curator's note: We continue to give Luna nutritional supplements twice a day as well as attempt to feed. Their preference seems to be a carcass in the pen rather than small amounts hand delivered. We see the best weight increase when they are allowed to feed on deer, beaver or moose in the enclosure whenever they choose. We continue to weigh the wolves every morning and the following are the weights since the last posting.<br> <li> 8/3/2012 132 39.68<li> 8/4/2012 133 n/a<li> 8/5/2012 134 39.24<li> 8/6/2012 135 40.12<li> 8/7/2012 136 40.56<li> 8/8/2012 137 41.41<li> 8/9/2012 138 41.41<li> 8/10/2012 139 42.33
Denali has a strong food possession behavior. As a matter of fact, a strong possession of anything behavior. If he sees something he want, he is very physical in getting it. This includes deer hides, carcasses, wolf care staff rakes and shovels. Denali doesn't like to hear the word no from the staff or the other wolves. Shadow seems to recognize this behavior and has been showing much more dominance to Denali. Wolf care staff continue to make the pups submit, but with 6 wolves in the pen, anytime one pup is down, the others come over to participate.
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