Maya is 95 days old today and it's the day before the introduction. We finally got a weight on her, they've all been a bit active to sit still long enough for the weighing process… Maya is a beautiful female pup. We looked in the wolf logs from the summer of 2000, at 97 days, Shadow was 37 lbs and Malik was 36. So, Maya is 2 days younger and a pound heavier. Maya is also a very submissive pup to handlers as well as the adults.
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Today Grizz is 89 days old. With the day of the planned introduction into the exhibit pack fast approaching, staff is carefully monitoring Grizz's progress. His activity level today made it impossible for an accurate weight, but staff is optimistic about his growth. His appetite remains consistently high, and he physically continues to appear more adult wolf like every day. The heat was intense today, so Grizz was very reluctant to leave his den for the Pup 101 programs. His continued renovation and expansion of the den makes it hard for staff and nannies to reach him in order to draw him out. Deer legs have been used to lure him out.
Maya is 91 days old today. She is a very submissive pup towards humans as well as to the Arctics through the fence. She seems to seek comfort from the handlers and is often observed climbing in people's laps or if the occasion arises, on people's shoulders. Her greetings of staff at the fence usually include low body posture with her hips spread wide nearly touching the ground. She usually leaves a 1 foot urine trail on the way to the staff.
Today Maya is 92 days old. She is constantely watching outside her enclosure. It seems that she knows that soon she and her packmates are going in with Malik and Shadow. Whe watches them play, run and she joins them in the howling every night. She is defending her food more from Nyssa. In the afternoon program, she actually kept the deer leg for herself for several minutes, while Grizzer and Maya were unable to aproach it.
Today Maya is 94 days old. Maya was frequently dominated by her littermates. Both Grizzer and Nyssa were dominating her while they were in the wolf yard awaiting programs. Maya was in a submissive position with a tucked tail for a prolonged time period as Grizz and Nyssa were aggressively dominating her. Maya did very well during programs.
Nyssa is 88 days old today. Her food consumption has helped her growth. She hit 35.5 lbs today which is our target for pup introduction. We finally got a weight on him, they've all been a bit active to sit still long enough for the weighing process. We looked in the wolf logs from the summer of 2000, at 97 days, Shadow was 37 lbs and Malik was 36. So, Nyssa is 9 days younger and nearly the same weight.
Today Nyssa is 85 days old. Since she was a week younger than her packmates, the whole nanny staff always pampered her a little more than Maya and Grizzer. Now that she is so used to that, that we call her "Princess Nyssa", and she expect us to treat her as such. We like to thank nanny Morganne McCallum for Nyssa's fan. As you can see, it comes very handy in hot days like today!
Maya is 44 days old today. Maya did well during programs and played with ice and lapped ice water out of a bowl, and also chewed on pigs ears and deer feet. When the retired wolves were howling, Maya was very alert, ears up and looking at window facing retired pack. She did not howl with, but was intent on the direction of the sound.We hard time weighing Maya. We slid the weighing sling under her and let her fall asleep. Once she was sleeping we weighed her.
Maya is 49 days old today. When music was introduced to the pups to provide a calming effect she seemeed particularly attuned to changes in the music's pitch and rythm. Maya is very sensitive when people walk in and out of the wolf lab. She tends to get very excited and paces around for several minutes before calming down. She also had a very good greeting with the arctics. Maya crouched down low in a groveling stance and flat ears. While whining, she crept toward the artics, who had raised tails and high ears. She also rolled over submissively. Maya seems to be targeting Nyssa during domination attempts while in the outside puppy pen.
Today Grizzer is 50 days old. Grizzer was a little anxious while the puppy pen was being cleaned during the early morning shift, but he quickly calmed down. Following a rough morning program, the puppies stopped by a deer carcass thawing for the retired wolves. Grizz sat on top of the deer and began plucking hair. Interest in the deer lasted well over 40 minutes. Following the 3:00 pm pup program, Grizzer and his littermates went to the outside puppy pen. They romped around for a little while and then fell asleep for several hours. Grizz also has a slight case of diarrhea. Grizzer has been treated for tape worms and staff are still monitoring his stools after treatment. Staff have also noticed a bit of fear avoidance behavior toward the weighing bucket. As the pups get older, they become harder to measure. A pup's weight is much more indicative of health than body length. To avoid negatively conditioning them to the process, Staff decided to measure body lengths on Mondays and Thursdays only and weigh once a day on the night shift.
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