Maya is 42 days old today. She played hard outside, climbing on her younger syster Nyssa and running to the Arctics whenever they whined. She greeted them with a tucked tail and flat ears. During her 42nd day she took her vitamins, received her vaccinations and had her ears washed. After her outside adventure, she was more interested in sleeping than in eating.
Today Groan is 27 days old. She has been doing extremely well in the public programs. She slept today during the morning program. She has been dominating both Nubee and Grizz, and has been doing play-bows with her siblings. Groan has been doing well with the weaning formula. At noon, she ate approximately 2 oz. of weaning formula and 4 oz. from the bottle.
Groan has been persistently going after Nubee in dominance interaction attempts. Groan did well during most of the program, but became stressed towards the end. She explored the pen, rubber Kong, and deer hide. She also initiated dominance over Nubee. Groan did well during most of the second program. When she had the deer hide, she was was exhibiting food-caching behavior. Towards the end of the program, she became anxious to get out. Groan did well during the last program and appeared to be more relaxed. She was interested in the deer meat inside the Kong and tried a few times to take the deer leg away from Grizz. Groan has been going after Nubee consistantly in dominance attempts.
Groan is 34 days old today. She is still exhibiting dominance over Nubee and Grizz. Groan also howled when she heard a squeaky toy. Groan was extremely anxious during pen cleaning. She began to be anxious after the door was opened. She paced the edges of the pen and whined loudly, howling slightly at times. Staff hypothesizes that she was anxious to get outside to freedom. Groan was taken into the pup enclosure today. There she interacted briefly with Malik and Shadow, whined a bit, and explored a little. Groan then sought refuge with a nanny.
Maya is 83 days old today. She played in water from the hose during the hottest part of the day. In one program, she walked to the crowd and greeted them with flat ears and low rear. She tried to nip at toes through sandals. Then she chewed on a deer leg with Nyssa and Grizzer.
Visitors frequently ask about the Name the Pup contest and how/why the names were chosen: Groan was nicknamed for her bold personality, as the Name the Pup contest advances, there are 3 names that may be relevant for Groan. Maya – which symbolizes her birth on Cinco de Mayo – May 5th. Tala and Misha were other names that were chosen by the judges.
Today, Groan is 36 days old. When she was in the outside puppy pen she immediately ran over to greet Malik and Shadow with intense tail wagging. She also displayed caching behavior with stuffed animal. During the pup programs, she is finding items, such as deer legs, that are hidden in the straw. Staff has experienced difficulty in weighing her. We are now using a canvas bag which helps to make the measurements more accurate. She is also showing improvement in her tracking skills. She watched as a stuffed animal was tossed across the pen and she then proceeded to retrieve it.
Maya is 50 days old today. Throughout the early morning hours, Maya seemed very tired as she had slept throught most of the morning. Following one of the morning programs, the pups stopped over at a deer carcass which was thawing for the retired wolves. Maya was tugging at the deer's ears and had a few aggressive dominance interactions with Grizzer over posession of the carcass. Nyssa was also very aggressive with Maya around the deer carcass. Because of all the early morning excitement, the pups slept a great deal during the afternoon hours. As the pups get older, they become harder to measure. A pups weight is much more indicative of health than body length. To avoid negatively conditioning them to the process, Staff decided to measure body lengths on Mondays and Thursdays only and weigh once a day on the night shift.
Groan is 37 days old today. Groan showed stressed behavior when staff brought her back into the puppy pen following pen cleaning. She was whining, howling and pacing. It took about twenty minutes to calm her down. Groan was very stressed when we brought the pups into the auditorium during pen cleaning. When the pups went into the outside puppy pen Groan did lots of exploring and greeted both Malik and Shadow with excited tail wagging. When staff brought her back inside she seemed very "unhappy". Like Grizz, Groan was very anxious during morning programs. Groan was whining and pacing throughout the programs and staff pulled the pups from the program after ten minutes.
Groan is 38 days old today. Recently her aggressive behavior towards Nubee has declined and in fact her and Nubee are often seen sleeping together. Like her littermates, Groan was somewhat stressed during today's programs. Often a beaver tail accompanied with other distactions are enough to keep them entertained during programs, but it does not always work. When she was in the outside puppy pen she was explorative and investigated Malik and Shadow's den. Pen cleaning seems to be particularly stressful on Groan. When she is released back into the pen following cleaning she paces and whines for about 15 to 20 minutes. Staff thinks she has an increasing desire to be in the outside puppy pen where she can maintain contact with Malik and Shadow.
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.