Nyssa is showing more and more independence in the pack. It's not that she doesn't greet people or other wolves when approached, but she tends to seek interaction on her terms. Grizzer and Shadow seem to be her choice for contact. Usually, it's wrestling Grizzer to the ground or licking Shadow's face. Her coat is coming in extremely thick and she does have nice long guard hairs. She has not caught up to Maya, and from a distance still looks a bit smaller, but her attitude makes up for her size. When she wants something, there's no stopping her.
Today during the first feeding, Nyssa showed again signs of dominance toward her packmates, Grizzer and Maya. Malik and Shadow were not excempted. Nyssa claimed property of the carcass and snap and snarled at everyone who tried to come closer to the deer, including Shadow. He let her eat in peace, but on some times, he tried to get some food.
Nyssa didn't like being mobbed by Grizzer and Maya this morning. Once her puppy mates were distracted, she took off on a run for the woods. She came back later to help Grizzer mob Maya while she was caching some food. Maya went into the pond to get away from Nyssa, since Nyssa is not much of a swimmer. Nyssa figured out that Maya was going to come on the other end, so she ran on the edge of the pond up to the middle rock. When Maya arrived, Nyssa was waiting for her.
Nyssa is doing very well on the exhibit. She is still a bit behind behaviorally, often when Grizzer and Maya come down to the front of the exhibit to see what's going on, Nyssa lags behind a few minutes. But, her tendency to be dominant is clearly demonstrated during a feeding program. Nyssa is observed aggressively dominating the wolves during the weekly "What's for Dinner program. Her guard hairs are growing in and is showing less of the grizzled gray appearance she had as a pup and more of the darker guard hairs similar to MacKenzie.
Nyssa did extremely well during the introduction. She reached 35 lbs and seems to be able to hold her own. The Arctics are dominating her less than they are dominating Maya. This is likely due to her very confident behavior. She also seems to be a little less cognitive of the activity in the pack, merely following along and going her own. When food was provided, Nyssa had no intimidation in pushing Malik out of the way to get her meat.
Nubee let out a small howl on her own. It seemed to have been stimulated by hunger or irritability.
Began to feed with Esbilac formula with an eye dropper instead of goat's milk formula because of diarrhea. Results of the vet's ananlysis of stools showed they were completely clean.
Nyssa has the same log entries each week. She dominates the carcass during feeding time and fends off attention from Maya that may lead to the pack focusing on her. The contrast of Nyssa in the snow is very striking. On several occassions as we review photos we have to look twice to be sure it's not an old picture of MacKenzie. Nyssa is a great addition to the Exhibit pack.
Nyssa is very independent and was observed sleeping by herself under the building eaves for nearly 5 hours on last nights shift. Nyssa continues to dominate food whenever possible. Today, she was given a deer leg and she defended it from all, even lunging after Malik. Staff also observed her do a full body block to Shadow and Malik while they were dominating each other. While this is only the first day of the observation, staff have noticed that the 2 female pups rarely spend time with each other unless they are in a 3-some. Grizzer spends time with Maya alone or with Nyssa alone and appears to have no preference. Although, Grizzer and Maya more frequently sleep together.
Nyssa is very independent, she rarely comes down to greet the other staff. Often staff have to go into the woods to get her when it's feeding time. She has no intimidation towards Shadow and Malik. In a recent dominance display between Shadow and Malik, Nyssa slept quietly next to them until Shadow started displaying a submissive paw to get her involved.
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