Mark Woodcock photographs Orca's first walk since the accident. Orca was really excited about going out and Monty had to keep him from going so far that he would have tired before returning home. Orca also "met" the pack through the fence. Karin greeted nicely. The males were also interested in seeing him. Only Chetan openly threatened, but nobody else was being very submissive. Orca only showed mild interest in seeing the pack up close.
Becky Bartel captures images of Orca standing and walking
Orca made a rapid and substantial improvement in July. He probably has been strong enough to walk for some time now. His ability to stand has improved steadily and his muscles have made marked improvement over the past months. However either the nerves to his legs needed to improve more, or just as likely he simply found it easier and more "normal" to simply drag his hind legs. Both probably had a role in this, but his sudden ability to walk seems to indicate that the problem was more psychological than anything else. Training tips by Terry Ryan were really useful here and Pat made sure that Orca had to stand and walk as much as possible for attention and even for food.
Monty Sloan photos of Orca's Swimming Adventure.
Orca has always like the water. Aptly named, yet he was not in fact named Orca because of his love of swimming. He was named after a whale because of Dr. Klinghammer used to work with Orca's and just wanted to name a wolf after them. After all they are "wolves of the sea." Even with his injury he still enjoys getting into the pond. His first swims were with a much shorter cable. He just kept pulling out toward the deeper water so it seemed a good idea to give him a longer cable. Orca has a tendency to chew leashes, cables, etc. so one of those retractable leashes was out of the question (unless anybody knows where one can find a kevlar one ;-)) With a longer cable he just seemed to forget himself and went out as far as he could, managed to get tangled and the cable tangled and weighted down in pond weed as well so Dr. Klinghammer had to come to the rescue. For more details on this go back to the Orca Update Page. Below is a fun photo I made of Orca after a day's swim. We didn't want wet sores to become infected so we made sure he was rinsed in clean water and then toweled off. He did not mind having water poured over him and he really seemed to enjoy being toweled off. Click on the picture for a larger version suitable for use as desktop wallpaper!

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs © Monty Sloan/Wolf Park For permission to use or for more information about wolf photographs please check with Monty Sloan