Grayson – Always Something to Chew

One thing that is certain about a pup year, we go through a lot of food.  The pups are still fed individual meals of meat (beef, chicken, bonedust or bison) nearly every day.  These meals are primarily targeted at Grayson who continues to lag in weight behind Axel.  In addition to the Saturday night “What’s for Dinner” program, we now feed on Wednesday mornings, usually beaver, deer scraps and the occasional whole chickens.  While Grayson may not be as assertive, there are many resources in the enclosure to satisfy his needs.  We continue to weigh the pups once a week, bringing them into the heated Wolf Care Center where they had many positive memories as pups.   Both pup’s are parasite free and while Grayson is still a bit behind Axel in weight, he is on track with data records from Shadow.  

 

 

 

Grizzer – Joining Luna

Grizzer has demonstrated some tolerance of some of Luna’s high intensity behavior and is definitely adapting to having access to all three retired areas.  There have been several observations of play bows and invite chase interactions between Luna and Grizzer with each taking the lead on stimulating the interactions.  We are happy to report that Grizzer weighed in at 130 pounds last week, the largest weight ever recorded for him.  We have worked through the feeding protocol so Luna and Grizzer don’t need to be separated when we feed larger prey species, although we still feed in separate ends of the enclosure.

Luna – Center of the Action

As winter settles in, wolf care staff’s duties increase dramatically.   One of the main responsibilities is providing a good layer of cover hay as a resting spot for the wolves. This is critical for Luna’s physical health, but the high vantage point also serves as a good view of the Exhibit Pack and the wolf yard.  Both views offer levels of stimulus for both Luna and Grizzer.  The new den built by the fall Working for Wolves crew is in the perfect spot for the winter sun.

Aidan – A Calming Presence

Winter has arrived and despite typical dominance occurring during the winter season, the Exhibit Pack is calm and Aidan has done an outstanding job of socializing the pups.  There have been many observations of Aidan stimulating pup interaction by rolling over, submitting and submissively pawing the pups in a social greeting.   But Aidan’s role is not only social, he shows limits to the pup’s often gregarious behavior and keeps Denali and Boltz from becoming too exuberant.  It does seem that Aidan has a more youthful level of activity during the many bouts of interactions, but at the end of the day, we are still reminded that he is nearing 9 years of age.  The pack leaders seem to show their age more than other pack members and we often catch Aidan in an eye’s closed, resting posture.  These are often short-lived as the pack has a lot of energy. 

Aidan – Doing the Snowplow

For Grayson and Axel, the snowstorm on November 18th brought 16 inches of snow and after the wind quit, Aidan took the lead showing the pup’s the benefits of winter.  Two behaviors are typical for wolves when the snow is deep. The first is a “Snowplow” a behavior where the wolf pushes the snow with its’ face and may follow with a full “Roll on Back” behavior and the second is a “Face-wipe”, where they wipe their face with their front foreleg or wipe their face against the snow.  The Face-wipe is often associated with cleaning blood and debris from their face after feeding on a carcass.   In the last Youtube video, there were several clips of Aidan demonstrating these behaviors with Grayson right at his side.  Winter is certainly the season for wolves. 

Denali- In a Submissive Moment

Denali spent the early days of the 2016 pup introduction intimidating the pups. Sometimes it was intentional with his chasing and excited playbow attempts, sometimes unintentional due to his mere size.  As the pups get older and larger, they are less intimidated by Denali.  We also encourage pup confidence by hand feeding kibble to the entire pack, controlling the interactions of the adults making sure the pup’s are comfortable and confident and get their fair share of a small, but nutritious treat.  This has been a tremendous help to Grayson and has strengthened the social interactions between Grayson and Denali.  In this photo, Grayson is offering a submissive paw to Denali, who lowers his head in response.  

Grayson – Looking for Patterns

It is challenging to tell Axel and Grayson apart, especially when they are wet with snow, but Grayson still has the dark saddle pattern that started to show when he first gained his permanent guard hairs at two months of age.  He also appears to have a shorter muzzle and some darkness around his muzzle characteristic of Shadow.  We also noticed that while Axel’s eyes seem to have retained a more brownish appearance of his pup days, Grayson’s eyes have turned the classic amber color of an adult wolf.  Other noticeable patterns include behaviors and associations.  Grayson continues to be a bit reserved when the pack is excited and seems to seek out Aidan when there are events that cause some stress or anxiety.  Although, patterns can change.  Early in the pup introduction, we would say that Axel showed dominance over Grayson, since gaining some confidence and being integrated into this pack, staff need to confirm the identification of the pup before declaring who’s dominant.   Due to last Friday’s snow storm, we didn’t get a weight on the pups, but plan to bring them into the Wolf Care Center on Monday to get everyone weighed. 

Boltz – a Tale of Two Tails

Boltz is a 4-year old male who is trying to figure out his way in the pack.  He’s had some testing behavior before, but a lot of that behavior was stimulated by tension with Luna and a bit of redirection.  This fall, we have been seeing a new side to Boltz; One that is more socially engaged in pack activity and notably, the interactions with the Axel and Grayson.  Boltz had some challenges as a young pup, lacking in social interactions due to Luna’s many medical restrictions, he didn’t experience the same social dynamics experienced by Aidan and Denali or Grayson and Axel, who had pup littermates.  Boltz had limitations and these limitations shaped his personality in the last few years.  Since the 2016 pup introduction, we are experiencing a new Boltz.  His confidence has increased and with the absence of Luna, Aidan is the only thing keeping him from gaining some status.  In this week’s photo’s, you see the T-1 tail of excited dominance and confidence, Boltz on the left and Aidan on the right.   This is a early in the winter season and so far, Aidan has taken control and put a limit on Boltz’s behavior.  Time will tell how this situation will progress. We are fortunate that the Vermilion Commmunity College Ethology class will start behavioral assessment and data recording by February to give us an indication of Boltz’s activities as we enter the most active season for wolf behavior.

Luna – Unraveling her Behavioral Triggers

Since we made the decision to continue the pup socialization into the Exhibit Pack without Luna, we have been assessing her physical condition and behavioral interactions.  The Luna we saw in the Exhibit Pack was one of dominance, intense possession and assertive behavior and somewhat unpredictable and unstable energy that met with a lot of redirected aggression.  This is not the personality of Luna that we see when we manage her alone.  She is calm, rarely shows the snapping defensive dominance  and welcomes the staff’s individual attention, especially after receiving training on body work that made her more active and improved her physical activity.  We have discussed this with our Veterinarian and are cognitive of the potential influence of her early nutritional deficiencies and the influence it may have had on her physical and mental development, possibly causing her to be food-motivated to the point of obsession.  In addition, she may have been proactive in dominance as a defensive behavior to compensate for her physical weaknesses or in a pain response to the activities of a physically active Exhibit Pack.  We were aware of these behaviors, regardless of the reason, we adopted Luna and we will always do what we can to meet her needs.  The list of needs includes social needs for both her and Grizzer.  We spent nearly three months managing Luna alone and taking things slowly to get to know her trigger points both physically and behaviorally.  The good thing about Luna is she is always willing to communicate what she doesn’t like.  It was no surprise that when we recently integrated her with Grizzer, we saw a return of some of the food possession that was characteristic of the “Exhibit Pack Luna”.   Fortunately, Grizzer has displayed a tolerance that allows us to increase their social contact while we try to determine the most appropriate way to feed without triggering this intense possession behavior.  We will keep you posted on their progress, but as I write this and watch Grayson and Axel running, jumping and wrestling each other to the ground (with the other pack members are in close pursuit), I believe Luna is in the right place to meet her physical and behavioral needs.  I noticed a comment on the Youtube logs about our management decision about Luna.  I don’t want to mistake the idea that the Exhibit Pack’s calm energy as lazy.  Calm energy is the sign of a cohesive pack.  They are active and far from lazy.  Luna’s issues brings unstable energy and obsessive behavior that can be viewed as weak and a potential target.  We need to understand each individual wolf and do what’s best for each and every pack member and meet their social needs in a safe and stable environment. 

Grizzer – A Period of Adjustment

Over the last few weeks, we have made some progress in getting Luna and Grizzer to share the three enclosures that comprise the “Retirement Area”.  Initially, we tried fence to fence greetings where we saw some focus and posturing from Luna, but no response from Grizzer.  With a team of seasoned wolf care staff equipped with tools for distraction and intervention, we opened the gate and allowed Grizzer to come into the Pack Holding Area with Luna.  The meeting was calm and Grizzer showed more interest in the Wolf Care Center  building than he did with Luna.  The following days resulted in some avoidance behavior, similar to magnets of like poles that repel each other, whichever enclosure Luna entered, Grizzer exited.  We were also monitoring Luna’s food possessive behavior since that was her behavioral pattern when she lived with the Exhibit Pack. By the third day of interactions, Grizzer and Luna started to show some social interactions with Luna even rolling over for Grizzer.  To make this transition easier for Grizzer, we are switching back to smaller more frequent feedings for both Grizzer and Luna with just one larger feeding on Saturday night.  With less food to cache, Luna’s defensive behavior subsides.  If needed, they can be separated for the Saturday night feeding, but we did watch Grizzer defend and feed on a beaver cache on Thanksgiving evening that had been Luna’s possession earlier in the day. They may have already made the adjustment.