Saturday, February 6^th, 1999

I thought it would be fun to take my Ricoh RDC 4300 digital camera out today and photograph the festivities during the Saturday afternoon cleanup.

Eastlake was cleaned first. I got there late, as usual. Since we have lots of Interns, and a couple volunteers to boot, I decided to take Orca out for a walk. Walking and taking pictures are kinda hard so I did not bother getting any.      When I got back, they had not cleaned Kiri and Socrates yet, so I joined in to be there. Kiri and Socrates are brothers who have never really settled rank. They were booted out of the pack in 1996 by Orca, who is out himself, but once out it is permanent. They live together and sometimes with the company of their Aunt Vega when they are in better moods. They are not in better moods this time of year (winter aggression and all) so we keep them separate for her safety. They are 5 years younger than she and Socrates in particular likes to pick on her. Although Kiri is technically dominant over Socrates, Socrates does not accept this. The result is a lot of tension and arguments. They have never hurt one another and we do not expect them to. For most of the year they are quite amiable and for the most part they do get along well.      Kiri though, has a dilemma. How to assert himself over his brother. Well, Kiri's technique is to mount. This is not at all sexual. It is however common in the animal world and it works well in this case -- for Kiri is at least 30 pounds heaver than Socrates! We know this because in 1996 they were taken to the vet for vasectomies and Kiri weighed in at 110 pounds while Socrates was a mere 80.      I lied down to get a good angle, well an interesting angle, and Mark who was cleaning the pen in the background walked by and I got the above, um interesting shot of "giant monster wolves".      While cleaning, Mark found a dead bird. Sometimes the wolves catch and eat birds, sometimes they just catch them. Sometimes birds just die in winter and we find them that way....      Seneca and Miska are not all that great with new people, especially Miska, and so we locked them up in the holding pen with Karin and Marion for company. We then all went in to clean. Actually we first greeted the wolves, which is the polite thing to do. Here is Tristan and the cleanup crew.
Maya Greeting Sergio. Sergio is from Argentina, Maya from Massachusetts. Coincidence? You decide. It's pretty spooky if you ask me ;-)	Tristan greeting Liz. Liz is from Scotland. Her accent is quite intense and really fun to hear. I think Tristan agrees.
Not only are the wolves socialized to people, we get them used to all kinds of handling. Being able to pick one of the wolves up can be very useful in medical situations, emergencies, or just for fun. Of course when you pick Tristan up, his sister, Erin just can't resist...	Then again, sometimes the wolves handle the people. Maya in particular is well known for jumping, climbing, mouthing, and generally being somewhat obnoxious. This may be cute, but we need to discourage it because we don't want to give the wolves ideas about dominating people that they might cash in on when they mature. It's also not a good thing when the wolf knocks your glasses off and they fly into the pond......
The wolves enjoy the water. It has become quite warm now, global warming I guess. :-(    The beautiful snow is all gone, the pond has even thawed out. Oh well, the puppies still enjoy the water at least.	Tristan steps into the pond to get a drink.
Erin also goes into the pond. Even when it is cold by human standards, the wolves do not mind getting wet.	Maya also came down to get a drink. This wide angle shot gives a fun perspective...
Chetan is a low ranking male. He is technically the third ranking male, but it is probably just a matter of time before Tristan asserts himself and dominates Chetan. Chetan gets himself into lots of trouble and Marion in particular is very aggressive with him. Miska will dominate Chetan and Marion will rush over, grab Chetan's tail and before long Chetan is on the bottom of a pile on. Chetan's poor tail is becoming quite sparse and moth eaten -- (Marion eaten?).      Chetan really enjoys it when we lock both Miska and Marion up. His two menaces are not able to subdue him and so he has a lot more social freedom. He took advantage to greet a lot both the photographer (he's rushing up to do just that in this photo) and the remaining "nice" puppies.
Just a nice portrait of Chetan.	One final Chetan photo to end up the day.