Boltz has shown some real excitement when greeting staff. This is not typical of his personality, he has always had a tendency to be shy. This might be due to the fact that he was so much older when we acquired him (nearly a month of age), or again, this may be a personality trait. As the wolves mature, we start to see patterns of behavior that exist as pups, then to yearlings then to adulthood. If a particular pattern continues through all stages of development and they don't "grow out" of a particular behavior, then we can assume we will deal with the behavior throughout their lives. One thing that helped Boltz work through some of this shyness was the relationship with Oscar, we are fortunate that we had the opportunity to use Oscar so extensively during Boltz's formidable months as a pup. I suspect without that influence, Boltz would be a lot more timid.
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Denali continues to act like a yearling and is often observed wrestling with Luna and Boltz. His size is tremendous when interacting with Luna, but fortunately, his personality trait is actually very gentle. The only exception is when food is involved. Denali shows no favoritism towards the yearlings when food is around. But, a recent feeding of a deer carcass had Luna possessing the carcass during the first 30 minutes, allowing Boltz to eat, but not Denali. Denali did manage to tug off a deer leg, then proceeded to guard it from Aidan. Aidan is very timid around the people who watch the feeding program from the window, so he often waits until the program is over to get his share. This is the advantage of feeding a large carcass, there is always food left over.
Grizzer is a bit lethargic this week as temperatures exceeded the average for this time of the year and neared 80 degrees. There's not a lot of time to acclimate when we have a 50 degree temperature change in a few days. Grizzer also has a very thick winter coat that will take some time to shed. Fortunately, he is one of the wolves that willingly accepts the staff while brushing and plucking his undercoat.
On Wednesday, I fed Shadow and Malik 10 pounds of chicken, and we thought it was a bit unusual for Shadow to guard the food from Malik, usually it's the other way around. On Thursday, Shadow appeared to have a swollen joint on his front left leg that may have been caused by some excited activity over the chicken. The surveillance cameras did show a bit of posturing later in the day on Wednesday, but not any definitive view of an event that might have aggravated Shadows leg. I started him on a 7 day anti-inflammatory dose at Noon on Thursday and by 5 pm, he showed great improvement. Shadow and Malik are very different from all the other wolves here, they are very agile and tend to do some quick jumps when greeting each other or greeting staff. This can put some stress on the joints, especially for older wolves.
We have been noticing more confidence in Boltz, especially when Aidan is engaged in some jaw-sparring with Luna. Boltz has been displaying ride-up behaviors with some intensity. He is quick to change to his submissive posture when it's a one on one situation with Aidan. This week's photo shows an example of this, where Boltz is displaying ponytail ears named for the characteristic of ears that are pulled so far back into a submissive posture that it looks like a ponytail.
Denali shows very little inclination to assert dominance over Aidan when Aidan is dealing with the yearlings. Denali seems to avoid conflict an engage in social wrestling behavior rather than dominance rank order issues. This is a good thing for Aidan who is seeing some testing behavior from Boltz, but can manage any of the wolves with a one on one interaction.
We moved Oscar's doghouse into Grizzer's enclosure to give him some more weather protection and to use for straw beds in the up coming winter. After hauling out a significant amount of straw, we thought it was best if we had a dry place for straw rather than piling it on the snow. Initially, Grizzer was intimidated about the house, but within a day he was caching in it, chewing on it and eventually sleeping on it.
We are starting Aidan on another treatment for Discoid Lupus. While this bout isn't as bad as the last outbreak, we want to reduce any risk of sun exposure on the areas of his nose with pigmentation loss. Aidan has been very tolerant of Luna who regularly does a "Stand Over" showing dominance over Aidan. He continues to show a lot of tolerance for Luna despite some less than social greetings.
The Working for Wolves crew did a tremendous job in removing wet straw and replacing the bedding areas with clean wood shavings. Aidan did well during the period of time when the pack was placed into the holding are for the cleaning projects, but we did see an increase in his redirected aggression. By Sunday morning, he had resisted going into holding for some final work projects and stayed in the Exhibit while we had an ATV move some of the large rocks under the eaves.
You may recall that we referenced a wood structure brought into Grizzer's enclosure on the Working for Wolves weekend. Well, Grizzer seemed to think otherwise of my plans and dismantled the box. This box served the 1993 litter of Mac, Lucas and Lakota when they retired in 2002 and managed to be unscathed for 7 years of use, but it didn't last a week with Grizzer. This just proves the point that every wolf is different and they are powerful individuals.
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