Axel – The Wolf Ruff

Axel is starting to look like a miniature adult.  As we celebrated Axel and Grayson’s 4-month birthday on Friday, September 2nd, his weight is showing rapid growth rate of wolf pups. Axel weighed in at 48 pounds and regularly eats about 2 – 3 pounds of food a day.  His main diet is beef or bison, but he likes chicken, liver and bone dust donated by a variety of meat departments.  Zup’s grocery in Ely, Minnesota has been saving bonedust for our ambassador wolves since 1989 and we are most grateful.  Axel continues to display behaviors that give us and indication that he may have some testing behavior in his future.  He frequently postures for food from the adult pack members and usually gets it, even from Denali.  But, the behavior most likely to get a swift response from an adult wolf is when he grabs them by the tail.  No wolf is immune from this antagonistic behavior, even Aidan.

Axel – An Excitable Addition

This week’s wolf logs are written by behavioral team members Gailyn Barela, Hannah Jones, and Richard Pikikero based on their observations during the first week of introduction.

Axel has adjusted well in adapting in his new pack, he has a testing nature who is confident and is gaining confidence daily. He is already skilled in finding caches and is a very social pup. He often invited chase and is very interested in exploring his environment. He has a very strong bond with his brother Grayson, and the confidence to engage with all the other pack members, often being the instigator of social interaction.

Axel – How does this Caching Thing Work?

Caching is an instinctual behavior to save resources when there is excess.  Typically, canids dig a hole, place an object, push dirt over the object with their nose and tamp to cover it.  In this photo, Axel stalls at the hole portion of the behavior and keeps pushing the item deeper into the ground, skipping the pushing dirt and tamping behavior.  Grayson looks on and within moments after Axel leaves, picks up the (not so) cached item and finds another place to stash it.  Just because behaviors are instinctual, doesn’t mean that they are not benefited from some practice and trial and error.

Photo by Kelly Godfrey

Axel – Greeting at the Gate

While the pups are becoming socialized to the humans, it is important that they maintain a bond with the adults.  Pups not only have access to the adults in the wolf yard during the day, but also have access to the adults in the Pack Holding Area throughout the night.  Most of the contact is dominated by Luna, but Boltz gets has several greetings a night as well.  Axel is the most comfortable with these greetings and shows the appropriate submissive ear response when greeting his future packmate.

Axel – Finding Distractions

When we talk about socialization, we always train people to distract a pup when they are anxious rather than try to physically calm them because the distraction tends to snap them out of state of mind that causes the anxiety.  If you physically try to calm them by stroking the pup, you may actually reinforce the anxiety.  To do this, you need awareness of the signs that a pup has an issue, creativity of new and innovative distractions and a lot of distractions available at a short notice.  Pup Care Participants have jackets with large pockets and zippers to carry bones, hide, meat, ice cubes etc., whatever is the preferred distraction for the day.  As the pups’ age, they will gain more access to larger spaces and they find their own distractions.  In the last few weeks, the pups have been utilizing the Pack Holding Area and a beaver head has been the distraction of choice.  In this photo, it’s a deer scapula.  When they join the Exhibit Pack, who knows what they will find.

Axel – Attitude Abound

Axel is frequently posturing with a dominant attitude.  These behaviors include the chin rest as shown in this photo, a T-1 tail displayed high above his back and new found confidence while Luna postures at the fence.  Initially, both pups were a bit reserved about greeting Luna when she was showing some focused and often vocal behavior towards the pups.  In the last few days, Axel seems to seek her out and stand his ground, keeping his tail erect despite the noise.   We always document the pup interactions and are interested in how each pup processes experiences.  We know from experience, what we see now may or may not be the behavioral response when they mature to adulthood.  But so far, Axel is showing some behavioral patterns that might indicate his pack interactions when he becomes a permanent member of the Exhibit Pack.  We have a new saying in the lab that is somewhat prompted by Axel’s interactions:  “I don’t have an attitude problem, you have a problem with my attitude and that’s not my problem”…  Wolf care staff get the benefit of seeing these individual personalities develop through the socialization process.  Along with attitude, Axel is gaining some size.  Yesterday morning’s weight for Axel was 11 pounds, today (June 18th) he weighs 12 pounds, a gain of 1 pound in a 24-hour period.  This is certainly the stage of a pups life where we see the fastest weight gain.

Pup Update 14 June 16

The pups have peaks and valleys when it comes to weight gain and can be based on activity, stimuli, amount of time resting and the basic metabolism of an individual pup.  Pup Care Staff and Participants monitor all food consumption  so we know every detail about their diet, but pups can vary. We look closely at the weight gain of each pup to ensure that they are always gaining or at the very least, not losing weight.  Earlier in the week, they gained around .3 – .5 lbs. a day.  From 6/12 to 6/13, Grayback’s weight remained the same at 9.1 pounds with a slight gain up to 9.2 pounds on 6/14.  Grayback continues to have a good appetite and is very active, this may just be a reflection of his own metabolism.   Axel continues to gain on a daily basis, from 9.9 pounds on 6/12 to 10 pounds on 6/13 to a 10.2 pound weight today.   

They have several evening bouts of howling between the pups and the pack (including Grizzer) and seem to want to go outside in the middle of the night. One of the great design features of the new Wolf Care Center is the guillotine gate that connects the building to the outer enclosures allowing the pups a bit more freedom.  Staff will start experimenting with evening excursions to stimulate the pups to key in on their future packmates.  They will be restricted to the vestibule until they form a more protective set of guard hair and can spend evenings outdoors in the Pack Holding Area.  From our past experience, the pups are spending most of their time outdoors by the 1st week in July.   

Axel – The Horizon’s are Increasing

Axel had a negative response to a situation in the 10 am program yesterday and started to show some anxiety with the auditorium programs.  (Grayback is doing well even though he tended to be the shyer in other interactions.)  This is not uncommon at this age, the wolf pups hearing and vision starts to increase, so they can hear more and see farther, extending their horizons and giving them more things to process.  It’s the Pup Care team’s job to help Axel work through this anxiety.  How did they solve it?  They chose to bring a deer leg as a distraction during programs to help him focus on something other than the sights and sounds of the auditorium and it worked.  This is part of the socialization process and the training that is instilled in the Pup Care Team members.  Things are changing daily with the pups, we need to be creative, and be quick to identify a response before it escalates… From my experience, this is the most challenging age for fear responses, but it is the most important time to introduce a wide variety of stimuli under controlled circumstances.  Every time we work with pups, we are reminded how valuable it is to have an adult wolf that deals with humans, equipment, noise, etc.  In the next few weeks, we start getting the pups familiar with the sound of weed eaters, chainsaws, construction equipment etc.  All part of life on a captive exhibit.

The pups are adapting to a change in their diet to a gruel mix of two different types of meat and some meat based dog food to ensure they get all the nutrients necessary for a growing body.  Their diet must be a success; Axel gained .6 lbs in the last 24-hours going from 8.7 lbs to 9.1 lbs. 

 

Axel – A Busy Media Day

The pups had a busy media day, spending some time outdoors to maximize filming opportunities.  Here’s a list of the pup media events if you would like to get a recap on their incredible story:

Main Story on KSTP…

   http://kstp.com/news/arctic-wolf-pups-international-wolf-center-ely-canada/4161644/?cat=127

Exclusive RAW Video of Wolf Pups Journey to America on KSTP…  (10 minutes)

   http://kstp.com/news/video-arctic-wolf-pups-international-wolf-center-ely/4161647/?cat=12157

Wolf Pups Slide Show on KSTP…

   http://kstp.com/news/international-wolf-center-ely-arctic-wolf-pups-slideshow/4161496/?cat=12695

Additionally, the story was carried this evening on additional TV stations, including…

WDIO-TV of Duluth…

   http://www.wdio.com/news/international-wolf-center-ely-puppies-arctic/4161503/?cat=10335

KDLH-TV Northland News Center of Duluth…

   http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/iron-range/New-Arctic-Wolf-pups-make-public-debut-at-International-Wolf-Center-382046071.html

WCCO-TV of Minneapolis

   http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/06/06/wolf-pups/

Axel – Physical Features

While we use the term socialized to identify the entire process of hand-raising pups, scientific literature describes this particular period of age development as the “Socialization Period categorized from 20 – 24 days to approximately 77 days”.  During this period in the wild, pups begin appearing outside of the den, playing near the entrances, ears being to raise and are usually erect and hearing improves dramatically.  As Axel’s photo shows, there is growth of the guard airs around the top of the head, nose and eyes.  The disproportionate feet and large head will be the next notable features for the pups.  Sleep is still a significant part of their life, but bouts of dominance increase when aroused.  Axel and Grayback have been spending more time outdoors as the weather allows.  The pups are weighed daily at 8 am and Axel gained .4 lbs in 24 hours.