Written by Pups at One Year participant Gail Ramee: Luna hung back a bit when the deer was first offered at the What's For Dinner feedng. She spent a good deal of time behind the rocks under the eaves. Once we put cedar chips down, she dug out some new beds. First thing this morning she joined Aidan on top of the slate den and hung out with him until wolf care. She didn't come down for wolf care for a bit, but when she did, she was moving well and did a little running around and was very social with the Behind the Scenes group, rubbing against the fence and whining. Her coloring is even more striking with her loss of her winter coat. She has some silver hairs showing through her black coat that makes her really shiny in the sun. During enrichment, Luna found an ice cube and laid down by the pond in the sun. She appears to be much less flipping her ears from fly annoyance. Today she spent some time licking the large ice block. She seems to frequently enjoy the privacy and coolness of the den up the hill. During the day, Boltz joined her and then left for the other den. Luna followed him a few minutes later but didn't go back in with Boltz.
Luna seems to be adapting well to the role of dominant (not doubt only) female. She is tenacious and is starting to show some body postures to match her attitude. A T-1 tail is when a wolf's tail is raised above the back showing status. There are many demonstrations of this tail posture by Luna in this week's video. The one behavior we are waiting to see if her tendency to pair bond with one of the males. We have a short clip of he jumping off a rock and pair bonding with Aidan, but it only lasted a few seconds. She has her wrestling behavior with Boltz, some associative behavior with Denali (although it's usually more food oriented), but not much indication that she needs to pair up with anyone. She seems willing to take things on alone, but due to Aidan's involvement in dominance over Denali, it's usually Aidan and Luna in active dominance.
Someone recently asked me if I had a favorite wolf. Certainly some people may think it's hard not to think of some individuals with a greater concern because of their individual needs, but the reality is, every wolf is different and they all have some unique characteristic to make them special. So, I thought I would dedicate this week's wolf logs to those unique characteristics. If I had one word for Luna it would be resilient, followed closely by defiant. She has overcome so much adversity in her life, yet nothing stops this wolf. The defiant piece might be our own fault. In our concern for her physical well-being, we protected her from all dominance, creating a wolf that doesn't seem to have any limits. Aidan's working on it, and might have some results, but as the only female in a pack, she is the dominant female by default.
Luna seems to be increasing her guarding behavior of not only food, but now staff. This is usually a trait displayed by Aidan, and it actually causes some conflict between Aidan and Luna. At this point, Luna usually wins, but not without some jaw sparring from Aidan. Staff have be very observant of the behavioral interactions to avoid getting in the middle of an issue. This is the challenge of working with a social group, rank needs to be identified and respected when greeting individuals.
We have been watching Luna to see if she's going to show and pair bonding behavior this winter. Right now, she's still quite possessive about resources and it's quite understandable that Aidan doesn't show much interest in close personal pairbonding moments. But we did observe some interesting behavior between Denali and Luna, both in a side rest position with their paws wrapped around each others heads. Of course, right after that, Denali got up and tried to steal a deer hide from Luna and she lunged at his head… I think we will have a completely different dynamic with Luna as the dominant female.
Luna will be a year of age on Monday and she is an active, dominant, food possessive and overall healthy yearling. The last few sub zero nights resulted in some stiffness and limping but as soon as the sun appears over the tree tops, she's up and moving around. We are fortunate that she has the tenacity to compensate for a smaller size and limitations that may exist for her. We have also observed some very strong social interactions with Boltz as indicated by Boltz's photo this week.
Luna's shedding in a strange pattern. Her neck hair is going first, then her belly hair and her back and tail seem to be holding a lot of hair. I suspect that her dark coloration will be returning as soon as she is done shedding.
Luna is very mobile and warmer temperatures have increased her mobility. We have had a lot of ice as the daytime warm melts snow and the nightime cold freezes it. We are leaving the straw on the snow to help with traction. Staff have been commenting on the fact that Luna seems to have a lot of raven's around her when she feeds. The ravens will walk right up to Luna watching and staring, waiting for her to drop a morsel of food. They seem to be more cautious of the other wolves (rightfully so, Aidan recently killed a raven), but they don't seem to sense much threat from Luna.
Luna has clearly established herself as a high ranking pack member. It's easy to be the dominant female when she's the only female. Our observations show that she's looking for opportunities within the male rank order and shows no inhibition to dominant Denali. Fortunately for Luna she has some back up in Aidan, but there are times when she's defiant to Aidan as well. We always wonder about nature versus nurture issues with our captive wolves. We see such varying personalities, no two wolves are alike despite similar socialization experiences. But, in Luna's case, we know she had a different socialization experience due to her medical condition and the need to protect her from injuries. Did we create this dominant personality or is this her nature. We can only observe, interpret and create a calm wolf yard that doesn't create undue stress and redirection.
Luna's been very active this week, but lower temperatures have influenced her appetite and one thing we find with Luna, when she's hungry, she's a bit dominant. It's in the best interest of all the wolves that Luna is full. When the snow was melting and the ground was bare, she was extremely active, but now the return to cold and snow make her a bit stiff.
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