By the end of June it was obvious that Apollo lost the ground he gained in April and May. He became more fearful - perhaps due to Karin's return to the pack after her puppies were taken from her - the little wench bites. Toward the end of the month, Apollo was much less on the fringes of things but Alyeska came up and hung around sometimes very persistently.

      In June we had a behavior seminar with Terry Ryan, well known judge and trainer of trainers. Apollo came around and posed with the seminarians for pictures. While Monty tried to take a group picture in the wolf enclosure, and EKL tried to make every one stand in tiers graduated by height, scrunched together so we would all fit, Apollo wove back and forth in the human leg forest. Periodically he'd pop his head out and grin impishly at the camera or up at the humans. Considering how his eyes brimmed with mischief I was surprised not to hear squeaks indicating he was pinching. Later I learned he was pinching some of the people but they sternly repressed impulses to squeak. Though EKL was still directing the people Monty thinks he captured some of the funniest photo ops. Unfortunately he has no idea where they are.

      Our neighbor with the backhoe came to collect on a debt for some digging: two hours of fishing in the wolves' pond. We locked up the pack and took AL and Apollo for a two hour romp in the seventeen acre pasture (sans bison). The boys wandered and ran and sniffed and explored. After about 20 minutes they came back and gave us an exuberant greeting. Then they ran off again and explored. I have long said that animals are much better at reading our body language including intention movements, than we realize. None of us had any intention of catching them for a good long time and AL and Apollo were quite happy to come and interact and then bounce off with out the wariness that the wolves sometimes display when we try to catch them after a wolf bison demonstration. They had a lovely time exploring, running and getting patted. After two hours they were content to go back. It was a little harder to get our neighbor out of the enclosure but we succeeded.

      Apollo ended the summer in a worse case than he began it. But with fall things began looking up, though not immediately.

      In late Sept., this was still surprising and hopeful: seeing Apollo play with Miska and Seneca and hang around within 60 feet of Karin. AND he stayed in the willows while Orca ate no more than 15 feet away. Orca ignored him the whole time and later he crept, tail tucked, to the dam and appeared on the Pine Ridge, where I subsequently saw him playing.

      All fall Apollo made much use of his "safety spot" by the willows on the west shore. When he'd see Orca coming, he tuck tail and creep over to this spot where Orca is habituated to seeing him. It is not 100 per cent safe, but Orca tolerates Apollo there better than just about any other spot at this time. Last winter Pillow had a similar spot on the shore of the North Sward. There were some bushes there which he could also back into if need be - making it harder for other wolves to get behind him and bite him on the rump.

      By early November, Apollo had progressed to repeatedly play soliciting Karin and even courting her. He began after she had been mobbed and forced into the pond (she suffered mainly psychological hardship: Altair threatened and there was no ambitious young wench to bite Karin on the rump). When Apollo approached her after that he was grinning and swatting her with his paw. Monty thought he had a mocking air. I thought Apollo was simply delighted to approach Karin and not be met with a curled lip and a buzzsaw growl.

      On November 4 Karin was on the hut, bird watching and yawning. Apollo jumped up with her, sniffed her and picked up her hind leg. Then he jumped off the roof and jumped back on, for all the world as if he were doing a "Lassie" and wanted her to play.

      Later that day she got harassed, almost mobbed, and Pillow ran over and watched. He did not bite but I was surprised to see that he was confident enough to go among aggressively aroused wolves - even with Orca absent.

      In fact, November was marked by Apollo's repeated attempts to get Karin to play with him and he began making progress. She would invite chase a few times and let him wrestle. His overtures of courtship were less well received, though she did not rebuff him ferociously. Pillow began to do other things that might make him more conspicuous. He climbed on the roof of the hut, and on the new stumps. On November 14 he joined a chorus howl. True, most of the pack were on the west side of the pond and Apollo and Chetan happened to be on the East Side at the pines on the ridge, but there they were, both howling.

      This was in spite of occasional setbacks occasioned by Orca, who, on November 6 - caught Apollo in near the dam and made a ritualized attack on him. A little after Apollo waded into the pond, Orca chased him along the shore to willows and hipslamed him some more. Apollo whimpered and attempted to defend himself; moments later Orca lost interest and left.

      On November 28 we found Orca mysteriously paralyzed from the waist down. We had to remove him to give him a chance to recover. Since the 28th, Apollo has been a full fledged member of the pack and has even tried to climb the social ladder, aspiring to the heady heights of #3 male.

      He has been happily smooching his little brothers (Seneca and Miska, the new alpha and beta males) and continued to try to charm Karin. I regret to report that Karin did not display a humble and philosophic attitude to her elevation to alpha female. She bit everyone on every possible occasion. Her favorite targets were Alyeska and, to a lesser extent, Apollo. Apollo was not discouraged. None of the males, even AL, seem much intimidated when Karin is the only pack member interested in puncturing someone. Pillow kept trying to find Karin's good side so he could get on it. Eventually she tolerated him most of the time though she did not consider him as a mate.

      One of the most exciting things to watch about Apollo's winter was his, perhaps inadvertently, perhaps deliberately, helping Miska in a moment of need. Miska and Seneca had a dominance fight on February 12 and Chetan and Karin did their best to"help" Seneca. Apollo went after Chetan. The observers interpreted this as Apollo deliberately defending Miska. While that may have been Pillow's intent, it may have been that he was taking advantage of Chetan, during a moment of excited arousal. Whatever motivated Apollo, it may have saved Miska some punctures. He had only one real puncture wound on the left side of his neck. Pillow has since been displaying modest political aspirations. The Saturday, February 14, following Miska's lost fight, Chetan was dominating Miska who dominated Apollo who dominated Chetan. We used the young males' behavior to the Howl Night audience a little more than usual about rank order: some rank orders are circular, but this pack usually settles down to a linear rank order eventually. By the end of the breeding season rank order linearity may have been restored: Seneca, Miska, who made a comeback, Apollo, who appeared to have risen in rank, Chetan, who lost higher office yet again, and Alyeska, on the bottom and showing no political aspirations.

      With more social freedom, Apollo has had opportunities to make himself conspicuous in more ways than just interaction with his fellow pack members. He has taken a great interest in the Howling Mouse (aka Cassie the Chihuahua) whom the wolves can see daily in her basket on the windowsill of EKL's office. The pack gathers underneath and licks its lips while gazing up at the Mexican Edible Dog. The hot wire which protects the lower building prevents Apollo from standing up and putting his paws on the wall so he has been practicing standing on his hind feet and balancing without external support ("Look Ma, no hands!") Sometimes he jumps into the air for a closer inspection; then his huge head, grinning like a jack o' lantern rises suddenly in front of the window like a furry jack-in-the-box! .Except for occasionally bearing the brunt of Karin's displeasure and having to periodically appease Miska, Apollo is having a carefree spring. Though we think that social play in wolves is actually low-intensity testing, it is hard to remember that when Apollo is feeling jolly. He escalates so slowly, and passes up opportunities to become more dominant at Chetan's expense. He cannot seem to stop teasing Karin.

      In mid May he looked particularly clownish - his tail lost its winter fur quickly, looking ridiculously rope-like, and often seemed to have a life of its own. Sometimes it telegraphed his mood to the observant: corkscrewing and giving mischievous wriggles before he tried leg pulls and stealth pinches on someone. Finally his nickname of "Pillow" morphed to "whoopee cushion" when he was particularly prankish...

      This spring Apollo is showing a great physical resemblance to his father, Chinook. The head is there; at least he approximates Chinook's long, slightly roman "Nooker nose," and the twinkly eyes are definitely in evidence. So is the palpable sense of mischief, and the readiness to embody the mischief. Often he seems to be deliberately provoking Karin by unremitting teasing, reminding me of all the hours Chinook spent pulling Altair's metaphorical pigtails when the two of them were maturing from adolescents to young adults. In late April and early May he began provoking Karin, playing classic wolf jokes (the leg pull) on her and subjecting her to pratfalls - he'd fall on her deliberately and roll on her recumbent, protesting form. He repeatedly checked to see "can you feel it when I do this?" which is another favorite wolf joke. One day when he and Karin were jaw - sparring and Apollo had provoked Karin to shrill imitations of a buzz-saw, I said to them "If you two don't stop that I'll make you get married." They both shut their mouths, looked at me and then departed quietly in opposite directions.

      Apollo spent the summer enjoying himself as the Pack Goof. Karin was in mellow mode so he often got away with teasing her. I even saw him make her submit a few times and warned him that he will doubtless pay for that assertion come fall.

      During one of my morning watches in early June, Apollo, Miska, Chetan and Karin all chorused. Then, in the burst of social energy that often follows a chorus (and leads to rallies), Pillow approached Karin, greeted her, pulled her toes, bugged her and nibble groomed her armpits. She lay on her back and nibble groomed Apollo's throat. Next Apollo approached and made an obnoxious submission to Miska and pulled his legs and wrestled him. Miska growl-barked a protest. Apollo returned to Karin and proceeded to give her inhibited bites, and to choke and harass her. Karin squirmed, kicked and nibble groomed Apollo's ears.

      Once we put the puppies in the pack on August 3, Apollo showed himself to be a very interested uncle to Marion (his bio-niece) and to Maya, Tristan, and Erin, his foster nieces and nephew. He spent more time hanging around and watching their antics from close up, even if it meant they'd swing from his jowls in passing. He often had what I can only call a besotted expression on his face while he watched them. All the adults will feed the pups, none have deemed the pups in need of protection from humans, but Apollo more than Karin, or even Seneca, who was also quite interested in the pups, has shown a high degree of tolerance and even fondness, even when the pups were being bratty.

      The following winter got rough for Apollo for as the pups matured they began to realize that they could dominate and harass him. Marion in particular, was quite the pest and would often chase and bit him for little apparent reason. Things did not improve much in the spring and he really did want to leave so in April, 1999 we made the decision to remove Apollo from the pack. Fortunately, he and Alyeska still liked one another and so after nice walk around the property together, we decided to pair them up and they both ended up spending the summer as the best of friends. Of course this did not last for soon yet more dramatic changes were to face Apollo.

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Unless otherwise noted, all photographs © Monty Sloan/Wolf Park Text adopted from Wolf Sponsor Updates and is © Pat Goodmann/Wolf Park For permission to use or for more information about wolf photographs please check with Monty Sloan