Maya has been very helpful keeping Grizzer's wound clean, but she's been a bit too helpful in grooming one of the stitches. Her nibbling behavior pulled a stitch and left a small opening on Grizzer's wound, but it actually may be a benefit, because it has improved drainage from the wound. Maya has also been much calmer with Aidan, without the Denali/Grizzer tension, she doesn't react as much to Aidan's activities. We see the difference on Aidan's presence on the web cam greeting rock camera.
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Shadow had a great feeding on Saturday night. As we've said before, we feed chicken daily, with mixed response from Shadow. But, we still want to feed a large amount of food to allow the wolves to satiate, which is much more in line with their natural feeding patterns. It's been a challenge, until last Saturday, when Shadow took control of a deer leg, stood over it and lip curled and growled when Malik approached. Of course, the Curator was standing next to Shadow doing her own guarding postures towards Malik, but it worked, and Shadow had a great scat on Monday (yes, we call scat great). The scat was dark, large and well formed, indicating a large volume of meat was consumed. We will see if he maintains the same behavior this weekend.
Sorry for the delay, a power outage seemed to take out the internet connection on Friday night and it continued through the weekend. So, the wolf logs will be all the same this week as we have already moved into a new week and 2 snowstorms have resulted in another foot of snow to clear from the wolf yard, the gates, the fences and den sites. It’s been a calm week. We are trying four different techniques to keep the pack in a lower stress environment. We continue to feed the Exhibit pack small amount of chicken Monday through Friday with a deer carcass or beaver on Saturday nights. We also are using Dog Appeasing Pheromone spray in straw beds daily, making sure there is always fresh straw available. We have added a supplement to their daily meds called Anxitane® (L-Theanine) Chewable Tablets, a green tea derivative, donated by the manufacturer that promotes this product as an all natural product to reduce stress related responses to environmental issues. The 4th issue relates to wolf care interaction, we make sure Grizzer gets the attention first as the dominant male of the pack. The retired wolves have had a good week, despite a renewed spot on Malik’s cheek, they are active, play bowing, eating both chicken and deer legs, and overall, not acting like wolves approaching eleven years of age.
Nyssa is 52 days old today. Nyssa continues to be submissive and friendly toward humans, greeting both strangers and those familiar to her with flat ears, tucked tail and enthusiastic licking. She has been mobbed by Grizz and Maya, but holds her own well.
The current situation with the Exhibit Pack can be summed up in one statement: Shadow was a great dominant male and kept the younger wolves in line. When Shadow left the pack, so did any sign of leadership. The decision to remove Shadow was based on his health, with weight loss down to 71 lbs, and a increasing level of aggression. Anytime one of the wolves approached, Shadow was aggressively pinning them to the ground, clearly in charge, but also causing some frustration from the other wolves. This behavior gave us the indication that his age and age related pains were too much for him. We don't regret the decision to remove Shadow, he's back to 88 lbs, he's greeting wolf care staff with more exuberance than a pup and while he has some feeding quirks, he's doing extremely well. But, the removal of Shadow forced Grizzer to be the pack leader, when he didn't have the behavior, or the respect from the younger wolves. If we had let Grizzer or Denali depose Shadow in a dominance rank order change, we may not have the issues we are facing today, but Shadow may have been seriously injured and that was not a risk we were willing to take. Shadow was dominant and he wouldn't have given up his rank without a fight, and his age and weight loss would have made him a weak target. Grizzer will need to show some leadership, gain some respect, and grow into the role of dominant. His behavior since Denali has been in holding is improving. He's at the gate with a high posture, showing his status, similar to Shadow's role as a dominant.
Grizzer has really improved his skills as a dominant male. He carries himself in a confident manner, with high tail and the right amount of posturing. As he gains confidence, Denali seems to relax. Our job as wolf care staff in the upcoming months is to keep working on Grizzer's confidence levels and keep the pack calm. So far, so good.
Malik has many fans, and thanks to the many people who have sent emails regarding his tooth infection. What's odd about an abscessed tooth is that he has no problem eating or chewing, but does affect his cheek with signs of the abscess under the skin. Of course, Malik doesn't allow for a tooth inspection, so we can only surmise from what we see externally. While the infection seems to be under control with antibiotics, it has a tendency to reoccur, and the Vet's preference is to schedule an exam and determine the cause of this rather than continually use antibiotics. This will likely be scheduled in the next few weeks, although at this time, he has been off of the antibiotics for a week, and there is currently no sign of any relapse.
Maya was a key player in Denali's reintroduction, showing support to Grizzer, but not showing dominance to Denali. We intentionally held Aidan in the medical pen in case Maya got excited and redirected, but Aidan was able to join the pack within 20 minutes, and was excited to rally with the pack. Maya did surprise us on some surveillance camera video, she was rolling on her back in what appeared to be a good mood, with Aidan watching. The video clip is on the Youtube channel this week along with Denali's introduction footage.
Grizzer is showing a lot of confidence this week, and wolf care staff are making a lot of effort to spend time with him. For the first time since Denali's reintroduction, Grizzer has allowed Denali to greet wolf care staff without driving him away. This is a reflection of his confidence with allowing lower ranking wolves to be greeted. This is a common occurrence in wolf packs, and we had significantly more issues with this behavior when Shadow first established himself as the Exhibit Pack leader in the winter of 2002. He wouldn't allow any wolf care staff to greet Lakota without showing some aggressive dominance to Lakota, at least Grizzer just chases Denali. Of course, that might be Grizzer's problem, he's a passive leader, which often doesn't gain the respect of lower ranking wolves.
One email suggestion to help pack dynamics referenced the idea of wolf care staff playing games with the wolves. While we addressed this during the Youtube video about how rough wolves can play and the safety hazards this would create for wolf care staff, we do know that Malik would be excited to play keep the hat away from the Curator. Since he's been successful at taking the hat on three occasions, he tries to grab it at every opportunity possible, including during feedings, when the den straw is being raked or whenever it appears hands are busy. If we didn't have to worry about him eating the hat and the wool binding his intestines, we would just give him the hat. But, it's a bit cold to be giving away good wool hats.
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