| Puppy Lutro immediately made his way into everyone else's hearts, as quickly as he had mine. Even grumpy old Solo and Denali, my low content Siberian husky crosses, liked him! They are NOT the sort to be impressed by pesty puppies...but Lutro was adept at picking up on their signals, and would back off at the first signs of annoyance. This was our first clue as to the magic of the half-wolf: he has all of the wolf's communication skills and brilliance, but is able to easily understand and adapt to things outside of the normal sphere of wolf existence. ;-) Lutro has demonstrated this best-of-both-worlds niche to us many, many times over. He is calm and at ease wherever he goes; he's at home in ALL worlds: human, dog, and wolf...and enjoys being able to rotate his time between the house, going places, being with the lower contents, and being out with the "Big Wolves". |
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| The high contents adored him from the start, especially my little female, Indie. Lutro quickly became "Indie's Puppy", and heaven forbid anyone besides me were to take him away from her! She'll huff, and she'll puff...but then again, ALL puppies are Indie's Puppies; female high contents are generally like that. <g> Indie and Lutro soon developed all sorts of cute little games, which amused us humans to no end. ;) They played tag, they played keep-away, they stalked and pounced on each other, they pulled tails and alpha-rolled each other...all in fun, of course! |
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| My middle high content Avatar (who had just lost his alpha rank in a friendly sort of way to his older buddy Ono) was the butt of many of Lutro's jokes as well. In fact, Ono used Avatar to teach the new pup how to perform the alpha-roll...Ono would do it, then Lutro would try it himself--with Ono keeping watch, to make sure Avatar played along.If Avatar didn't roll, Ono would "help" him roll by looking menacing, or perhaps taking a meaningful step towards him. Avatar, always a wonderful teacher of pups himself, was usually happy to oblige... |
| and taught puppy Lutro to wrestle, compare mouth sizes, and tackle the other dogs by hooking a leg and pulling them off balance. (Indie is a notorious tail puller, and it wasn't long before Lutro picked up that trick, too. ;) When 'Tro was about 10 weeks old, I watched Indie begin his Dig Training. She took him to the hollow at the base of the large pecan tree, sat him down, and began to dig. Then, she stopped, and looked at Lutro. Lutro moved into the hollow and took a few tentative scratches. Indie joined him, and then backed off again. Lutro continued digging for a bit, then flopped down in the cool, comfy hollow. Lesson learned. It never fails to amaze me, how well these guys learn by imitation. For the record, Lutro's current den is large enough to completely hide himself! |