Shadow and Malik had an exciting time visiting with Board Member Nancy Gibson who bottle fed them as pups. It's great to see this level of excitement when greeting. They've had a rough time lately with the biting flies. Of all the wolves on site, Malik offers the greatest challenge to apply any type of repellent either cream or spray. Tolerance of this type of treatment comes from repetitive exposure to the handling technique when they're young. We don't use the actual chemical ointment on pups, but we do use vaseline on the ears and a spray bottle of water.
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Shadow seems to have a stronger bond with myself as the Curator, so to apply ointment, I put two large dabs on my fingers, and hide my hands in my coat. When I enter, he is excited to greet, and I reach for his ears to apply the ointment. If he's very excited to greet, I manage to get his ears before he discovers that I have the ointment. If he senses the ointment and pulls back, I may coat the top of his head. Once I make an attempt and fail to put on the ointment, he may avoid me for the rest of the check. If I don't have anything on my fingers, I can rub his ears without any trouble. This is a real challenge as the biting flies can be miserable.
Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn't, but Malik has been observed in several full scrapes after urination. If you recall, this was a behavior typically done by Shadow. It appears Shadow's more subdued behavior may be influencing Malik to be more assertive, and the subtle way to do that is to scrape the ground after urination.
Denali has a very playful demeanor when approaching Bolts through the fence. He doesn't whine nearly as much as Aidan. We have discovered that Denali is also much more tolerant of fly treatment. Not only do we put ointment on their ears, but Denali doesn't mind a full body spray. Aidan is not so fond of the treatments, which may be related to his dislike of the suntan lotion on his nose.
We started the Behind the Scenes programs last week. Both Aidan and Denali are at the fence for this program, but Aidan is much more reserved and will tend to wander away from the crowd. Denali seems to take advantage of this and has been testing Aidan a bit. So far, it's nothing more than some ride-up behavior, but we are trying to do all we can to keep them calm. This is one of the reason's why we scheduled the Behind the Scenes on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Rather than spread them out during the week, we concentrate the programs to reduce the amount of time Aidan may express anxiety. We will also end the Behind the Scenes programs prior to the introduction.
Denali has taken a few opportunities to test Aidan, but while they may start with a lot of excitement, eventually the power struggle reverts back to Aidan. It's critical for Wolf Care Staff to be cognitive of the influences that can change the dynamics between the individuals. We think it's in the pup's best interest to meet Aidan first as he has shown more guarding behavior than Denali. This is still our introduction plan, but that's still 30 days away and a lot can happen in a wolf exhibit in 30 days.
Shadow has a tough time with the recent warm spell. When temperatures reach the upper 80's, he seems to really feel the effects. We have removed a significant amount of hair from his undercoat in the last two days and this will help. We cleaned the pond and refilled it with fresh water, we run the sprinkler hose multiple times a day and try to keep things quiet so they will rest in the shade. Our latest efforts also include the use of some cedar oils to help reduce the bugs around the enclosure. I wrote about some testing behavior from Malik after Shadow showed some intimidation with a fly ointment application, but Shadow is able to stand his ground and has not lost status. We are changing their fly treatment protocol to avoid this issue in the future.
Thanks to one of our log viewers (Thanks Kate); we are trying a new treatment for his Lupus condition. We will keep you posted on the results. Other than the pigmentation loss, there's no other effects from the Lupus. He continues to show very good social behavior towards the pups and had some interesting "Stand Over" behavior with Denali on this week's Youtube. We are counting down the days until the introduction of Boltz on July 30th. We still don't know about Luna, but we believe Aidan will be a good social companion to Boltz.
Grizzer's abscess has drained, and there appears to be no more issues. It's hard to say what caused it, it could have been a poke from a branch or it may have been a bug bite (more likely considering the bugs). We never saw signs of a real wound, but the lump is gone and he has no sensitivity to the area. In the upcoming weeks, if Luna gets her release from the surgeon's to have more activity, we plan on moving Grizzer back into his new habitat and let the pups interact in the pack holding area (the front part of Grizzer's enclosure). This will only occur for a few hours a day, but it's critical that the pups know this area well, as this is the site for the introduction to Aidan and Denali. We have already done a session with Oscar in this area while we were cleaning Grizzer's pond, Grizzer was very excited to come back in and sniff the areas where Oscar cached. We expect he'll have the same stimulus with the pups.
Luna has had some good moments in programs, and sometimes she has brief moments in programs where she has to be removed because she aggressively mobs Boltz and puts too much activity on her leg. Her next set of x-rays in July 10th, what we hope to learn on those x-rays is if the calcium growth is continuing on the plate, if the plate is in the proper position and if the femur fracture is lightening in color, indicating healing. If conditions look good, we will cautiously allow them time together outside, but keep them separate in the lab due to slippery floor conditions. If that goes well for a week, we will want to start giving them both time in the pack holding area. Luna and Boltz both have a pattern of holding at a certain weight for a few days, then gaining over a pound. She did this yesterday and now weighs in at 29.1 lbs. <br> Here are the weights since the last posting:<br> Date, Days of age, and weight in lbs.<br> 6/30/2012 98 26 <li> 7/1/2012 99 26.5 <li> 7/2/2012 100 27.9 <li> 7/3/2012 101 27.7 <li> 7/4/2012 102 27.8 <li> 7/5/2012 103 27.7<li> 7/6/2012 104 29.1
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