Puppies! - Wolf Park

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(Continued from page 1) the next few days, her searching diminished. In the wild, the disappearance of even an entire litter is not uncommon. Wolf mothers search for a while, and then move on. While we all feel very sorry for the mother wolf when we take the pups away, we know that the puppies’ lives will be miserable if they are not hand-raised — far more miserable than the mother is when we take the pups away. If we let the babies stay with their mother, even if we interact with them every day, they will not bond properly with humans, and will be terrified of people their whole lives — and, since they will be spending all their time surrounded by humans, that would make their lives unbearably stressful. Socializing the pups improves their quality of life immeasurably, in a wide variety of ways. So we take the pups each year. We all apologized to Erin. We wish we could explain things to her, and, more, we wish we could tell her that she will see her puppies again — they will be added back to the main pack in August. Back in the nursery, the pups were being ooh-ed and aah-ed over, weighed, and adored. The pups were huge, about 2 1/2 pounds (1.2 kg) apiece, and absolutely gorgeous. Erin did a tremendous job with them. One of the boys and one of the girls (Renki and Ayla, respectively) even had their eyes open, although they were not yet developed enough to track movement. Pups this age (about 10 days) can wiggle, crawl, grunt, and suckle, and that’s about it — but pups grow fast. Renki quickly expanded his vocal repertoire by emitting the litter’s first bark at about 3:00 pm on his first day with his new human parents. During their first night, Ayla produced a miniature howl. By the 29th of April, teeth were starting to Renki at five weeks. come in, ears were opening, and eyes were beginning to respond to light levels. The pups moved around the nursery, climbing on and off of the puppy mothers’ sleeping mattress, and started to wrestle with each other — the very tiny beginnings of competition for rank. At 5:15 pm on the 29th, Ayla was taken outside for the very first time for an attempt at getting an official portrait taken for sponsors and admirers. She posed Puppy mother Pam and head puppy mother Peggy with pups. Puppy mother Marla moved too fast to be photographed! 6 Photos by Monty Sloan Wolf Park News Spring 2004 Proud parents, Erin and Tristan pose on the hollow log. Photo by Monty Sloan beautifully — a born diva — but proper portraits would have to wait until she could pose by herself in the grass, rather than being held in a puppy mother’s arms. By May 4, the pups had their first tastes of both water and meat. (Very young pups do not drink water; they get all their moisture from milk.) On May 6, they visited the outdoor nursery for the very first time and were given a real deer leg, with a little meat left on it, of their very own (they were thrilled). Renki performed his first scent roll. On May 14th, during a Howl Night program, the pups joined in their first chorus howl with the adult wolves. The pups are raised by humans, but they must meet some adult canines as they grow if they are to interact properly with the rest of the Photo by Monty Sloan pack when they return in August. On May 17th, the pups were presented with a variety of adult canines for little 5-minute sessions. Deneb, one of our older female wolves, did not seem terribly interested in the puppies, although they were fascinated by her as she was walked by outside their pen. Peggy’s dogs, Spirit and Lexi (female German Shepherds) were also walked by the pen, one at a time. They seemed a little awkward around the wolf pups and the pups did not seem as thrilled by the dogs as they were by the wolf. (Some dogs love wolf pups, and vice versa. Spirit and Lexi are simply not two of those dogs.) The pups were positively entranced by Peggy’s long-haired Chihuahua, Little Bit, but Little Bit did not share the feeling! Outnumbered by four enormous clumsy puppies who were already larger than she, Little Bit climbed up on Peggy’s lap and made faces at the pups, who could not decide whether she was a grown-up, a playmate, or a squeaky toy. Miss Ursa Bear, another of our elderly Puppy mother Karin fills a wading pool while curious puppies look on (and in). Photo by Monty Sloan
Ayla at four weeks. Photo by Monty Sloan female wolves, exhibited a little more interest in the puppies than did Deneb and got to visit with the puppies inside their pen. Fascination with puppies tends to fade quickly with a lot of adult wolves, as the “cute little things” discover the joys of chewing on paws, tails, noses, and ears. Though she entered the pen with a gentle grin and a soft expression, after a little time being followed around by a pack of “grass sharks” nibbling excitedly on her extremities, Ursa looked ready to leave and was assisted back out of the pen. On May 31, Karin, who had four litters of her own in the late 1990s, got to visit the puppies. We took the pups over to an enclosure at East Lake, and, after they had a while to get accustomed to the enclosure, we brought Karin in. Karin knows exactly how to behave with puppies. She made herself small, crouched, whined, and lay down for the puppies to approach and explore. The puppies were so excited and thrilled they practically flung themselves at her head to submit to her, occasionally overshooting and actually flopping over the top of Karin and landing on the other side in their excitement. For about an hour they all enjoyed a love fest. We cannot recall a litter in the last twenty years in which all the puppies were so gentle, submissive, and well behaved with an adult for Chetan offers Tristan a submissive “smooch”. nearly an hour. The pups got their first leash lessons on May 20, at about five weeks of age. Their first “walk” is less about leash manners than about learning what the restraint of the leash feels like, and pairing that restraint with the indescribable joy of bouncing around in tall grass and hunting for mice. Wolves do not naturally take well to restraint, and we have to work hard to pair the leash with happy experiences and to help the wolves understand that the leash will not hurt them. The pups did very well at leash lessons, although Ruedi was a bit intimidated by the tall grass. Walking the pups in high foliage helps keep the pups from seeing something they need to run away from or toward, bolting, and getting caught up in the leash or suddenly Video records are made of the pups’ activities. Photo by Monty Sloan restrained. In the tall grass they walk slowly and calmly and have to pause a lot to think about how to get around the plants. This allows them to become aware of the leash in a calm and gradual and nonthreatening way, and assures that, next time they’re shown the leash, they’ll associate it only with good things. As of this writing, the pups are living outdoors in their own enclosure at East Lake, just like the “big wolves” do. They are still occasionally meeting adult wolves, practicing their leash lessons, and participating in the “Adopt A Wolf” program, meeting adoring sponsors in person as well as learning to pose for photographs in puppy photo sessions. Ayla, named after the lead character in the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel, has already bought her “queening hat” and is just waiting to grow into it. She wants to be first for everything, whatever it is, and wants a part of anything anyone else happens to have, whether it be deer meat or shoelaces. Kailani, whose name is a Hawaiian word meaning “sea and sky”, originally held the title of Puppy Most Resembling A Square, for being nearly as wide as she was long when taken from the den, but now she is growing into a lovely, svelte young lady. Photo by Monty Sloan Alas, it appears she is already subordinate to “Queen” Ayla but that may change over time…. Renki, named for Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, a well-known German ethologist and friend of Dr. Klinghammer, has already started dominance “wars” with his brother Ruedi and anyone else who will listen. He wears a very serious face while he does this, even though he is still very tiny. He looks a great deal like his father, Tristan, when he stands up tall and puts up his little baby hackles and growls. Ruedi, named after Rudolph Schenkel, the creator of the first wolf ethogram, is a sweet little thing with a penchant for nibbling on toes (at least, he did while visitors to the pups’ nursery were still required to remove their shoes). He is a little more laid-back than his brothers and sisters, and always seems to have a wiggly greeting (interspersed with “Can you feel it when I do this?” biting) for his visitors. Puppies greet Karin for the first time. Photo by Monty Sloan Wolf Park News Spring 2004 7
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Page 11 and 12: Ursa meets the 2004 puppies. Photo

Puppies! - Wolf Park

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