We received Luna's bloodwork and she is in normal range in Vitamin D levels which is great news. Her last set of x-rays show the femur fracture completely healed, and mineralization of the bone indicating an improvement in bone density. We will continue to provide her nutritional supplements, but based on the comparison between Boltz's x-ray and Luna's, she will be included on the July 30th pup introduction. We are trying to maximize her weight and would like to see her at around 38 lbs, which was Maya's weight on her introduction. <br> Here are the weight gains since the last posting:<br> Date Days of Age Weight in Pounds<br> <li>7/21/2012 119 33.9 <li> 7/22/2012 120 34.83<li> 7/23/2012 121 35.27<li> 7/24/2012 122 35.27<li> 7/25/2012 123 36.16<li> 7/26/2012 124 36.59
Luna also seems to have spring fever, and probably feels much better in the warmer weather. She had no problem running at a full gate up the hill to defend a cache from Denali. We had a computer failure on the Exhibit Cam computer, but I will work through the weekend to try to get an alternative camera.
Luna weighed in over 60 lbs this morning. Her appetite has increased and we are hoping to see her continue to gain. Luna has some good footage on Youtube this week guarding a cache. She's so vocal about cache's that it draws the interest or every wolf, making it more challenging for her to defend. She's becoming more of a challenge to give her the daily supplement, which requires wolf care to become far more creative.
I posted all logs as September 1st so they wouldn't go into archive status after one day. To see them, select September on the side bar, by tomorrow, they should load on the page. Have a great weekend…
In the interest of getting logs posted tonight, I’m copying the same text. The priorities in my job include pup feeding time. We have a short period of time to maximize growth and get Luna and Boltz the resources necessary to prepare for a Northern Minnesota winter. Feedings require time, patience and some ingenuity. As I write this, I just finished a successful pup feeding with Luna eating over a pound of venison and another ½ pound of chicken. It was not quite as successful with Boltz, but he was caching everything I offered, so he must have been full. Boltz does utilize the remaining carcasses from previous feedings and his scats are dark, indicating meat consumption. Aidan has had some tremendous social bonding behavior with Luna, unfortunately, I didn’t get it on tape. With cooler weather stimulating hormones, we are bound to see more. Grizzer is the beneficiary of most of the pups left overs. He does enjoy that part of wolf care. Shadow and Malik continue to posture with Shadow more dominant, but they don’t have any issues when it comes to sharing the den in a rainstorm. Thanks for checking in, I hope to have more time next week to give a more complete update of each wolf. We have started to increase the feedings or all the retirees, and are in need of some pigs ears to serve as distractions as the pups continue to be the focus of the staff.
The logs will be all the same for this week. We did some concrete work in the Exhibit Pack on Wednesday which took precedence over all filming. The back of the den site in the Exhibit Pack had some old logs as a cover to prevent snow or rain from getting into the den. These logs were starting to rot and with Luna still being vulnerable and extremely active near the den, we decided to concrete a 3 foot by 6 foot overhang at the back of the den site. You may have noticed the densite webcam showing the fencing used to keep the wolves out. They were extremely good about the fencing and other than Denali on circling the fence on the first night, they didn’t dig or push on the fence. This allowed the concrete to dry thoroughly before the form and fence were removed on Friday. Grizzer, Shadow and Malik have had a quiet week and we will have more to report next week.
Luna continues to amaze us in her ability to control feeding interactions with the adults. On this week's Youtube, you will see several instances where Denali respects Luna's possession of a carcass. The supplements are as challenging as ever, but we are committed to maximize her nutritional needs and grow into a healthy adult. Luna is very animated about feeding, she tosses food in the air, head shakes hides and can defend food with a quick lip curl, snarl and growl. We do see some limping on her hind leg after extended periods of rest or after a significantly active chase scene. But, she's quick to recover. Keeping good straw placement for warmth and insulation will be an important part of the this winter's routine.
We had intended to transition the pups to a 2 or 3 times a week feeding, but we see some intense behavior from Luna when she's hungry which makes the entire pack tense. She is ruthless when it comes to guarding food and even has Aidan on the run. I don't know if this is just her personality or if she burns so many calories from running around and the smaller body frame needs more energy. Regardless of the reason, it's in everyone's best interest to keep Luna full and happy. We will continue to feed Luna whatever she needs to keep her active and a cohesive packmember.
We did get the results back from Luna’s medical tests. The 24- hour fasting blood draw was done on November 10th and a full blood chemistry as well as vitamin D levels were tested. The vitamin D level of 145 is well within normal range for dogs which is 60-215. This has been a long road getting her to this point. We have been sampling periodically since we discovered her issues and her values have increased from 34 on 5/16 to 78 on 7/18 to 117 on 10/22 and her latest value of 145 on 11/10 tells us that she is able to meet her dietary vitamin D needs through her normal diet. We stopped the daily supplement on October 12th due to some concerns over negative conditioning. We still see an issue with limping when it’s cold or when she’s been at a heightened level of activity. We started her on a one-month treatment of Adequan which is an injectable treatment twice a week to decrease inflammation, reduce painful sensations and improve joint issues. She’s responded well to the first two doses. We weighed Luna this morning and are very pleased with the 73.92 lb weight. She runs so much in this pack that were concerned that she was burning more calories than eating, but she manages to still grow. Aidan's very good about grabbing food and bringing it up on the hill to let Luna eat. Although, if you watched the Youtube video, Luna has no problem defending her own carcasses.
We did have a few days below zero (Fahrenheit) over the Christmas holidays and while Luna seems to be stiff after periods of resting, she was actively mobile. We did notice all the wolves doing some 3 legged hopping as their paws get cold on the compacted snow. This is why we keep so many straw beds in the enclosures. We are still treating Luna with Adequan once a week and see a noticeable improvement on the days following the treatment. She is tremendously tolerant of these injections and after all she's been through, we are thankful that she still wants to socially interact with staff.
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