- Dad looks on as mother clasps pup’s snout in her mouth
- Mother keeps her mouth around pup’s snout, Dad watches
- Mom snarls at pup lying on its back under her. Dad and another pup casually watch
- Mom is stretched over pup holding it down
- Mom lies on top of pup holding it down and punch-bites it; the youngster whimpered during this and then escaped and fled
- You can see where the pup has been bitten
This is the second time in the same day that I observed this behavior between this particular seven-month old female pup and her mother. Please see the previous posting.
I had two thoughts that might be related to this: the first about Great Horned Owl dispersal, and the second about canine intuition regarding the alpha quality in another canine.
I’ve seen Great Horned Owls lovingly raise their owlets for almost a full year, from the time they are born in late March, through the fledging stage when they leave their birth nest, and through months of teaching hunting and other survival skills. Then one day, towards the end of the Fall season, both parents — these are parents who have mated for life and have raised their owlets together for the last 15 years — turn viciously against their offspring forcing them to leave the area. There is room for only one mated Great Horned Owl pair in any territory due to limited resources. As time approaches for the new reproductive cycle to begin, at the end of the calendar year, any offspring born that year are driven away by their parents. I’ve always wondered what it must feel like to be so totally loved and cared for, and then have those who loved you suddenly attack you. This is what goes on. The young owls fly off to areas as close as the next park over, if there is room there, or as far away as across the US.
My second thought stems from how my 2-year-old female dog reacted when we brought home a new 4-month-old puppy — a male. We found the puppy — abandoned — and we couldn’t just leave him. She must have intuitively known that he would be growing much bigger than her, and that, based on his behavior and activity level and disregard for her, that he would assume the dominant status eventually. It’s only with hindsight that we came to know that this was going on right from the start. Over an extended period of time we noticed that the alpha status had segued to him, and she just accepted the inevitable. An alpha coyote in the wild, it seems, would do its best to prevent this from ever happening, especially from one of its own pups who began showing signs of any kind of dominance.
So, we’ll soon see how this situation pans out: if it settles down, or if it leads to something.