shadow – Aug 10, 2009 12:00 AM

In the year 2002, MacKenzie, Lucas and Lakota were reaching 9 1/2 years of age, and were spending a fair amount of time with a low tail, spinning around to avoid anyone behind them, and generally showing body language of wolves losing their place in the pack. Now that Malik and Shadow are this age, we are watching for those signs, but are not seeing them. Yes, Malik gets chased if tension is high, but Shadow is clearly in control, dominating all the pack members in a ritualized manner that keeps all the other wolves in a submissive posture towards Shadow. We would expect to see him increase some threat displays as he gets older as a defense mechanism for an aging animal that isn't as physically strong. This is no the case for Shadow, Shadow had a full session of dominance on every male in the exhibit on Saturday. This may be a bit of compensation for the knee injury he had last week, although there's no physical signs of problems with his knee. He was actually initiating chase behavior on Friday night, very excited when interacting with the pack.