Breaking Through (Completed)

Wolf research and bad ideas

Physical Behaviors:

A great deal of the communication among wolf pack members involves body language. Specialized behaviors and postures have evolved that help reduce aggression between individual animals within the pack. Body language helps the pack live together more agreeably.

Facial expressions are often used to express emotions. Wolves may indicate dominate behavior by baring teeth and pointing erect ears forward. Subordinate behavior may be indicated by closed mouths, slit-like eyes, and ears pulled back and held close to the head.

Wolves also use tail positions to communicate emotion. Wolves expressing threatening signs hold their tails high, almost perpendicular, while submissive wolves lower themselves before dominant pack members, tails tucked between their legs.

"Hmm... okay... That is kind of helpful... " Stiles kept reading.

Scenting Behaviors:

A wolf's sense of smell is up to 100,000 times greater than humans'. Under good conditions a wolf can smell something a mile or more away. Scent is a very effective means of communication for wolves.

Wolf packs are highly territorial. Scents are used to clearly mark the boundaries of territories, to claim and defend that territory from other packs, to mark food ownership, and to act as a sort of road map for the pack itself. Scent is a way for a pack to make its presence known long after it has moved to another part of its territory. Urination is the most common way of scent marking, wolves also have scent glands between their toes.

"Okay ew... but that means touching at all scents something right? So anything they touch is their territory right?" Stiles whispered to himself as he continued reading.

Vocal Behaviors:

Vocal communication among wolves consists of howls, whines, growls and barks.

Although all the functions of howling are not known, scientists believe that wolves may howl to assemble their pack, to claim territory, to warn intruders away from a home site or kill, or to identify other wolves. Wolves also howl in the evening and early morning, in the summer when pups are young, and during the mid-winter breeding season. It is a myth that wolves howl at the moon, but they do point their snouts toward the sky to howl. Projecting their call upward allows the sound to carry farther. Wolves have excellent hearing, and under certain conditions can hear a howl as far as six miles away in the forest and ten miles away on the open tundra.

A wolf howl is a deep and continuous sound from about half a second to 11 seconds long. The pitch usually remains constant or varies smoothly. A howling session by a single wolf lasts an average of 35 seconds, during which the animal howls several times. A howling session by a pack lasts an average of 85 seconds. It is initiated by a single wolf, and after its first or second howl one or more others may join in.

Alpha wolves usually display a lower-pitched howl and will howl more frequently than those with a more subservient social standing. Pups practice howling as they mature, mimicking those of adult wolves. Lone wolves may not howl as much to hide their position from other residential wolf packs.

Except for the high-pitched yapping of pups, wolf howls almost never include barking. Whines are used often at the den site, primarily by the adult female. They are thought to be sounds of affection. Growling conveys aggressiveness and usually comes from a threatening dominant male

"Pfft So that is why Derek is always growling..." Stiles chuckled and shook his head. Stiles then remembered hearing the howls that night Derek had saved him from freezing... he paused his research and thought about it for a few moments. He wasn't trying to think of them as animals. He just wanted to understand their instincts...

Sighing he went over the information again and then he saw breeding behaviors and stayed away from that. There was no way he wanted to think about that. Shaking the disturbing thoughts away and making a gagging noise he went ahead and closed the lap top.

Standing up he looks around and sees that a couple of hours have passed. He hears something faint yet... was that a snarl...

Looking out the back window of his room he looks down into the back yard. Nothing is there. But he opens his window. There is something. A sound.

Going downstairs and out the back door he starts walking. No one was in the house. No one is in the back yard. All the cars are still here.

Standing at the edge of the woods he hesitates. The last time he went into the woods he almost froze to death...

"This is such a bad idea..." Stiles bites his bottom lip as he stairs at the woods. "Lets do it."

Taking a deep breath he pulls up his red hood and tries to feel confident as he steps into the forest.