MacKenzie is doing well despite the previous cell growth on her right cornea. The October medical exam will include a treatment of this condition to hopefully reduce the tissue or at least stop the advancement of further tissue. MacKenzie continues to be the dominant force in the Retired Pack. The more playful Lakota gets, the more serious MacKenzie is about reminder her of her lower status. MacKenzie enjoys the daily staff visits, and can be found in full submission, letting staff check her body for any lumps, bumps or abnormalities. But, staff need to be conscientous of the other wolves as MacKenzie won't stay down for long if Lakota walks by.
Off all the retired wolves, Lucas seems to be the one that is showing the most signs of aging. His hair is turning very white around his face and he has some of the classic weepy eyes of older animals. He seems to have some increasing allergy problems causing some this weeping. Wolf care staff clean his eyes on a regular basis, and hopefully, the cold weather of fall will put some of the pollen to rest. Lucas really has shown a pattern of spending time in the denboxes. There are days that he won't even get up to greet staff.
The cool mornings have brought about a new burst of energy in the Retired Pack. Lakota has been up to her usual tricks of playbowing to the staff and the other wolves and then racing around the pen, looking to see if anyone is chasing her. So far, Lucas has been willing to do a few sprints after her, but MacKenzie just tends to wait until she comes near to take a grab at her.
Started brush training the pups today. As temperatures top the mid-40's, the tendency is to start seeing shedding shortly after. Grizzer took to the brushing well. He actually kept coming back to handlers to get more grooming.
MacKenzie somewhat jumpy/snapping at Assistant Director, Gretchen Diessner (GD). MacKenzie's eye trouble sometimes affects her attitude. GD left the enclosure and Curator Lori Schmidt continued the scheduled wolf check without incident, continued eye drop treatments for MacKenzie.
Mackenzie and Lakota's first day in retirement went well. They were very eager to investigate their pen and settled into comfortable sleeping areas under the balsam trees.
Pack extremely calm today after feeding on Saturday night. A local trapper provided 5 beaver for the pack, a welcome break from the previous ground turkey meals they had earlier in the month." Pack dynamics is good in all enclosures, fundraising continues to build the retirement enclosure for MacKenzie and Lakota.
Lakota has always had the personality trait for being most likely to entice the other wolves into a game of chase. This trait hasn't faded with her advancing age. As the fall weather approaches, staff again see Lakota excitable and often begins wolf care with several laps around the den boxes, jumping at low level tree branches and both wolves and humans in her path. She continues to excavate two major tunnels in the enclosure, one nearing 15 feet in depth.
Maya is doing well, there was some concern that her submissive behavior would have been a focus of the pack, but she seems to be able to avoid situations that may result in a mobbing. She is quite content to go off by herself and chew on a bone (that she is very able to defend) and wait for the other wolves to greet before approaching staff. Her coat is very full and healthy. She appears to be gaining length more than the other wolves, but no noticeable height growth, she is still shorter than Grizzer.
Of all the wolf interactions, the dominance between Grizzer and Nyssa is most notable. Grizzer and Nyssa like to play rough and are ususally found biting each other with the full neck scruff in each others mouth. It's actually a technique wolf care staff have used when Grizzer is being mouthy; push Grizzer toward Nyssa and they go after each other. They both have the hide for it, and seem to seek each other out. Nyssa seems to be over her skittish behavior related to the wheeled carts, but this weekend is the Workin for Wolves weekend, where staff and program participants will be moving rock into the enclousure. Special attention will be paid to Nyssa to see how she deals with this.
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