UNA
- Gender: female
- Birthdate: 07.04.2012
- Origin: Minnesota, USA
- Meaning of her name: remember
Her nickname "meerkat" has stuck until today. She got her nickname as a puppy, as when she was excited when one of the hand-raisers passed by the enclosure, she always sat straight upright on the hill with ears pointed wearing an almost grin on her face, so a similarity to a meerkat could not be denied.
... appearance
Una is a rather small, very graceful she-wolf. With just over 30 kg, she is a lightweight compared to her conspecifics. Her delicate figure with long legs makes her easy to recognize. The rather greyish colour, and the fact that she often keeps her nose at a funny angle, are her distinguishable features.
... with conspecifics
Una spent the time following her puppyhood with Nanuk, Yukon and Wamblee. Since the little Wamblee soon could not cope with the boisterous Yukon, they were soon only three, which worked well for a long time. Una coped well with the gruff nature of Yukon's games if the hormones did not get in the way. With about 2 years of age, she wanted to claim Nanuk. Understandably, Yukon was not very happy about this, so we decided to separate the two females so there could be no serious fights. Thus, Una stayed with Nanuk, and Yukon joined Wamblee.
Since then, Nanuk and Una live in a harmony together.
However, Yukon is still a thorn in her side. Whenever she sees her in the distance or smells her presence, she becomes terribly upset. It seems as if she is still worried that Yukon might once again contest the newly won position she now holds on Nanuk's side.
... while learning and interacting with us
Una only completely trusts the people who were involved in her rearing. These people can do almost anything with her; Taking blood, taking skin samples or giving injections is no problem as long as she gets meat for it.
She, like her brother, has her own will and can be extremely obstinate in all circumstances, but that's something you always have to expect from wolves.
Many tests can only take place when no strangers are present, and only the trainers perform the various tasks. But then she is surprisingly brave and scores well in the tests.
... with strangers and objects
Una is one of our shy wolves. It depends a lot on her mood, whether she wants to work or join the group of people currently in her enclosure. At the same time, she feels even safer with complete strangers than with those she already knows a bit. This fact does not make her the favourite wolf of the students because she often does not want to cooperate willingly and enthusiastically in the experiments.
Generally, she finds unknown objects scary the first time she sees them. However, this is often just a habit, because when you distract her, she become less timid faster than would be normal if she were genuinely scared. Often it is just unwillingness to work with students.
... in puppy age
Together with her brother Chitto and the two other siblings Amarok and Tala, she came to the WSC with just over 4 weeks of age. Unfortunately, the American bureaucracy stood in the way and so they spent the first 2 weeks in the human care of one of our employees in the USA.
But soon after the exhausting journey she explored the new environment and the many new smells in the puppy enclosure.
Her favourite things as a puppy were definitely digging for mice and playing and charging around with her “pack brothers and sisters”.
Una liked her human caregivers just as much as her pack. She snuggled up to them as close as possible to sleep and defended her place against the others.