Aidan and Denali are one year old today. It is always difficult to believe that an entire year has gone by since the pups first night in the lab. As you can see by Aidan's weight, he is well on his way to maturity. His body structure is deceiving, as he is still inches smaller than Denali, but he's very compact and muscular. Of course, he gets a lot of exercise running from Maya. Both pups were still eager to stand on the scale to get peanut butter, but all the other wolves were eager for the treats as well, so it was not an easy task getting weights. Aidan is getting more comfortable with the transition of new staff back into the enclosure, we are starting to identify some trigger points to help anticipate anxious behavior.
Vermilion Community College students assisted with the straw removal, pond cleaning and trenching of the den site, in an effort to help drain an excessive amount of spring snow melt. The students did an excellent job in rainy, cool conditions, while the wolves stayed in retirement eating 3 beaver, and frequently checking on the progress. Upon returning to the enclosure, the pack did a lot of scent rolling in areas where pond water was bailed from the upper pond. Aidan spent a fair amount of time checking the den and the trench project. His video this shows his continual attempt at getting acceptance from Shadow. If we had to predict the strongest, most intense social bond, it would have to be Aidan to Shadow.
With spring arriving and temperatures in the 60’s the snow is melting quickly. The enclosure has residual straw beds that have solid layers of ice, creating the waiting period before we can rake and remove straw. The warmer weather has made the wolves less active during the day. Maya is calming, which makes Aidan more relaxed. He is greeting more with staff and spending some quality time interacting. We still notice his response to anxiety turns predatory. Even with the most experienced staff, he grab-bites when there’s too much commotion in the enclosure. He quickly calms if staff face him and bend over to greet and do a chest scratch. The pups will be one year old on Monday, April 27th, it doesn’t seem that long ago that we brought these amazing pups into the lab, it has been a learning experience watching them grow into yearlings. Aidan has formed some very strong bonds with his fellow pack mates.
Aidan is doing well, he is cleaning the bite on his shoulder which helps in the healing process. He's had an interesting week; Maya still has her moments, especially after a howling session. It appears that howling stimulates Maya to find Aidan and show him some status. Aidan's getting good at finding safety zones, areas where he can face Maya and show her a threat display. The Wolf Watch program is Thursday the 7th, it should be a good opportunity to identify any underlying tension in the pack.
Aidan's hip injury is doing well, but a bite to the right shoulder by Maya has put him on a course of antibiotics. Life for an omega is tough, and even though we understand dominance and rank hierarchies, the human emotion always roots for the underdog. Despite the triggered bouts of intense dominance from Maya, he continues to foreleg stab her inviting social interaction. Our challenge is to identify what triggers Maya to redirect to Aidan. At this point, it appears that Denali's lack of submission and constant testing of Grizzer has the whole pack on edge. We observe Aidan's behavior to get a sense of how he's dealing with life as an omega. From our observations, his confidence is still in tact, he frequently RLU's and is very confident to scrape the ground spreading his scent.
The following observation was written by Wolf Watch participant Cameron Feaster. <br> Aidan still remains at the edge of all the activity. When Grizzer is chasing Denali or othewise dominating him, you'll often find Aidan scraping at or stomping the ground just out of reach. He continues to give Maya plenty of foreleg stabs, but Maya is ignoring him more and more as time goes on. During our observations, we found Maya fully submitting to Aidan, who performed some playbows and foreleg stabs in response. Eventually Aidan lost interest. <br> The following was observed by Wolf Care Staff member, Laurie Feela:<br> Aidan wanted to go into the pond and tripped when he was looking to see where Maya was, he went in and just stood there for a few minutes. Then Maya came over and blocked him from getting out. He finally managed to get out and ran, but then he shook himself off and kept going after her to play. He did several playbows and jabbed her a few times. She didn't know what to think and ended up walking away. Since he wasn't running from her she wasn't sure what to do.
Aidan's had a good week, but he has taken to laying in the upper den holes during the warm days, which leaves him trapped on the hill sometimes. By trapped, we mean that Maya waits and tries to ambush him when he comes down, so he sometimes stays in the woods until he has a wolf care staff member create a Maya distraction to come down the hill. Once he's in his safety zone in the front of the exhibit, everythings fine.
The log postings are all the same this week, we have a Working for Wolves program this weekend and will post some behavioral observations from participants on Sunday. The Exhibit Pack is doing well, despite the increased aggression that is typical of the first cold and snow of the year. Both packs received straw on their dens which is always a source of initial excitement, but also encourages bedding behavior. Malik's abscessed tooth has healed, as his photo shows no indication of the scar. Shadow continues to take small portions of food on a daily basis with a peak of interest when the weather turned cold.
We had some great behaviors from Aidan towards the pups. Not only does he regurgitate for them after the main pack feeding, but he's been bringing deer legs to the edge of the fence and caching them near the pups. He was a bit startled when he brought a deer leg to Luna and she aggressively growled and lunged at the fence toward Aidan. To his credit, he slowly walked away and had no response to Luna's behavior.
Aidan had an unusual behavior on Thursday morning. When I went in to do wolf care, I noticed that he was staying near the den entrance. Usually he comes over to greet and guards staff from Denali, so when we were able to greet Denali first, it seemed like something wasn't quite right. We went over to the den and spent some time interacting, until he felt comfortable enough to move to the front of the Exhibit. This seemed to coincide with a Behind the Scenes program. Aidan has always been the shyer of the two adults, and when he acts a bit reserved, Denali takes advantage of him and tests him for hours after a program. We certainly want to avoid any disruption to the wolves rank issues right before the introduction. We did our last Behind the Scenes this weekend, and we are trying to keep things relatively calm in the wolf yard prior to the introduction.
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