MacKenzie is doing well physically, but staff have noticed her a bit irritable behaviorally. Sometimes, older animals can show less tolerance for human handling due to aches and pains and would rather not be touched. In addition, the construction across the road may be causing her irritation. Regardless of what's causing it, this is a great reminder that we are working with wolves, and no matter how long you have known an animal, they can't be predicted on how they will act to external stimuli. In this case, all 3 wolves are responding differently. Lucas is showing physical signs or irritation, MacKenzie is showing behavioral signs of irritation and Lakota is showing no signs of irritation.
MacKenzie is doing well, she still spends a fair amount of time laying in her corner. Staff regularly put chips there to make her comfortable. Her winter coat is developing and she appears to readying for winter.
Mackenzie was more active today due to the cool weather. She dominated Lakota on several ocassions and spent some time just resting on her favorite spot, the corner of the enclosure. Since wolves have active sweat glands only in the pads, when it's hot an humid they cool by panting, staying under the shades, and specially, being unactive. If the weather continues to be cold, we might see her in more interactions with the other wolves.
It’s a busy week for the curator, so all the logs will have the same text: In the Exhibit Pack, there’s been a lot of raven activity around the left over food, and as Maya’s video shows, some ravens are caught by the wolves. Maya killed this raven that was too close to the carcass. Dominance in the Exhibit pack remains fairly calm. In Shadow’s video, you see him taking a leadership position on top of the den, moving with a high tail position toward the pack. He vocalizes to Grizzer and gets the response he was looking for. Malik continues to show signs of being a third ranking male, in his video, you see him watch Grizzer take a deer carcass up the hill. On Sunday’s feeding, staff fed 1 full deer and a second deer torso to ensure that everyone had plenty to eat. In the Retired Pack, Mackenzie has her good days and bad days. The video for MacKenzie shows one of her bad days, She prefers to rest in her straw bed and not interact with staff, but she shows submissive ear postures to the staff off camera. We are very watchful of these days and give her the respect and space that she needs. The day after that video, she had a great day with staff member, Matt Fetterer. She rolled over on her back and got a full massage from Matt, stretching all 4 legs to full extension for the full effect of the massage. Lakota’s change in antibiotics did the trick. The abscess has drained and she’s back to her playful self. On the same day as Mac was getting the massage from Matt, the curator was doing playbows with Lakota, as she raced around the pen and even jumped over the curator’s head. Of course, she was sitting on the ground, so it wasn’t that high of a leap, but for a wolf nearing 14, it was very limber.
Everything is going well here. It appears that MacKenzie has overcome the spinal issues she had earlier and is being weaned off the prednisone. Lakota is still springing around the enclosure as if she were a two year old, instead of a wolf nearing 14 years of age. The male rank order remains calm, with Grizzer and Maya continuing to interact as pupmates, and Shadow maintaining watch over the pack. Malik seems very relaxed and in his video this week is observed with high tail interacting with Grizzer and Maya when they are wrestling, but backs off when Shadow gives him direct eye contact. Thanks for your continued support of the wolf care program. Staff will be monitoring all wolves closely over the coming holiday season and maybe we’ll see you on the webcam.
Mackenzie loves to have fresh chips in the enclosure. After the Wolf Care Staff spread some, she went and layed in the shade. She was quite relaxed when Lakota approached her and layed by her side. This is one of the few pictures where you can see both of the females side by side.
MacKenzie is responding to the medication, she is still weak in the hind quarters, but is moving around the enclosure and willingly coming to the fence for meatballs. She ate 2 lbs of warmed meat mix last night and another 1.5 lbs this morning. She and Lakota both slept together in the full bale of straw in the corner of the enclosure. This seems to indicate that is was not a spinal stroke, but some type of acute spinal injury, such as a pinched nerve or disc problem. The webcams are back on for now, but if her condition declines, we will again give this pack some privacy and turn off the webcam.
We seem to have come up with the ideal dose of medication to keep MacKenzie comfortable and mobile. As this week’s video shows, she’s maneuvering throughout the enclosure well and has a very good appetite. She also seems less anxious than earlier this winter when we were adjusting her pain medication. It’s good to see her comfortable and relaxed.
MacKenzie tends to be a bit initimidated by the "big eye" that we call a camera. You can see this in her airplane ears. However, she was relaxed and relieved by the cooler morning air, which means the flies were leaving her alone for the moment. Yesterday, the flies were quite bad for all the wolves, but especially for the retired pack. They got a good dosing of fly ointment on their ears and legs, which seemed to help a bit.
The Retired wolves were moved into the pup pen while a tree was felled in their enclosure. MacKenzie had the most difficult time with the move as she was very defensive towards Shadow. The wolves were separated by the protective cloth that the Nanny Teams put up last summer (thanks John Virr); but she was still able to get a few defensive snarls and growls in at Shadow. Maya was very submissive and whining to the Retired wolves, MacKenzie did whine and lick at Maya.
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