Despite Grizzer's large body size, he still is rather tolerant of sharing food with his siblings. During a recent feeding, Grizzer and Maya ate their deer carcass rather peacefully, while Nyssa decided to take on the arctics. Grizzer has been suffering from the erruption of his permanent teeth. Last Thursday, Center Intern Jen White observed Grizzer franticly pawing at his mouth. Curator, Lori Schmidt went in and checked Grizzzer for obstructions, only to find one of his premolar milk teeth, partially dangling from his gums. Lori extracted the tooth without incident. Thank you to all the Nannies who faithfully conditioned the pups to gum and teeth work. There's also been a bout of allergy/or pond algae based ear infections in the Exhibit pack. This requires ear cleaning and ointment. The puppies are great to work on. They sit patiently while staff cleans their ears with cottonballs and deliver drops. Again, a big thank you to the Nannies who helped condition the pups to this type of handling. Shadow and Malik are another story. We did find that if you wanted Shadow and Malik to run the other way, just pull out the bottle of ear ointment.
What can I say about Grizzer. Everyday is a new adventure and wolf care staff need to be very aware of Grizzer's attitude on any given day. As he learns the power associated with his size, he begins to test the things he believes he can master. Wolf care staff will be having an upcoming handling meeting to discuss the boundaries established with the pack and the individual handling techniques to use on each individual wolf. As you can imagine, Grizzer gets a few pages of the training manual dedicated to him.
Increasing coordination-was scratching his ear with his hind foot. Chewing on a piece of cloth. Feeding behaviors continue to improve. Suckling response has been regular and strong.
Grizz rolled over on his back and allowed Nubee to stand over him and grab his leg. He also licked her muzzle.
The introduction has shown initial signs of success. Shadow showed the most dominance toward the pups, mainly due to the nearly constant food begging behavior of the pups. Both Shadow and Malik regurgitated large quantities of food for the pups. Shadow's dominant growls and bites were controlled, with enough force to get the point across, but soft enough for the smaller puppy heads. Grizzer was the first to swim in the pond and explore without intimidation.
Grizzer did a ride-up on Shadow, and initiated play behavior. He seems to be the most comfortable with the arctics. Today during wolf care, Grizzer climbed to the top of the Raven platform in his efforts to explore the Exhibit. The rain continued today so enclosure photos are limited. Everything is going well so far.
Grizzer and Maya have both been climbing on the greeting rock (the large rock in front of the webcam), but he couldn't really figure out how to get off. It's quite different to see a little wolf on the greeting rock for a change.
Steve Lokker sent this picture of Grizzer as a puppy. I guess the tree chewing has been a long history.
There isn't too much to report. Over the weekend, the temperatures topped 80 degrees again and led to the wolves being more elusive on the exhibit. Grizzer managed to take the top off of my favorite maple tree on Friday, so enclosure enrichment activities will be stepped up a bit.
Grizzer may be mature, but some days there’s still a hint of puppy in him. In this week’s video, you will see Grizzer rolling in the fresh snow as Shadow looks on. You will also see Grizzer’s response to Maya’s hormonally motivated intensity. He has no problem wrestling with her, in fact, it takes away some of the energy that he might have used in the male rank order.
The International Wolf Center advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future.