Usually wolves' family has 5 - 6 puppies. There were cases when they were born 10, 15 and even up to 17. But such cases are rare and half a litter in numerous families does not survive.
Cub-wolves are born blind, helpless. Experts distinguish 5 stages in puppies' development:
- the neonatal period - from the birth till eyes opening;
- the interim period from eyes opening till the first reactions to a sound;
- the period of socialization - puppies come out from the nest and transition to meat food;
- the youth period - the first distant excursions of grown-up puppies, the beginning of territory development;
- the period of a sexual maturity.
Puppies open their eyes on 9th-12th day. During this period puppies are absolutely helpless. Mother helps them to make a toilet, licking under their tails. Puppies are not capable to rise on legs at this time and move creeping. They are constantly in body contact to mother or with each other. The most part of time puppies sleep. To the end of the second week they usually start to react to sounds, and in three weeks for the first time they appear from the nest and approximately during the same time start to try meat.
Sharp changes in their behavior come in the beginning of the third week. By this time they already see and hear, stand up on their legs and start to walk, trying even to play with each other, striking one another with paws and biting. To active games puppies pass in the age of one month when they jump forward and back, drop to forepaws and bite each other's muzzle. In the first days she-wolf constantly is with puppies. She is fed by the wolf. He brings food in his stomach and eruct it to female. Gradually female leaves puppies alone, often and for a long time leaving in searches of forage. Cases when she-wolf has left puppies for the term up to 68 hours are fixed, that is she can be absent almost during three days. Duration of female's absence strongly depends on an abundance of forage in vicinities of the den. The more it is accessible, the fewer time she-wolf leaves puppies alone. Usually when female leaves the den, cub-wolves remain alone, gathering in a heap to be warmed. The wolf seldom is with them in the den. But if puppies creep up to the father, he does not frighten them away, warming them with his body's warmth. Wolves arrange their dens in the covered, well protected places. They can be canopies in rocks, deep cracks, niches, and gullies in ravines. Often for dens wolves use holes of other animals: foxes', polar foxes', badgers', marmots'. Wolves expand another's holes and very seldom dig their own, choosing for this purpose soft, usually sandy ground. Dens, and also family day-time rest places where cub-wolves spend first months of their life, meet two requirements: presence of shelters from dense vegetation or the lay of the land and simultaneously good field of view, allowing finding out danger. It is very difficult to approach to the wolves' den not noticed. As a rule, animals find out the person and have time to be covered earlier, than the person finds them out. Growing up puppies can gambol on absolutely open, well overlooked place, but such playground necessarily is adjoined by either dense thickets, or a heap of stones and labyrinths of courses in rocks, ravines. In these shelters cub-wolves and adult wolves are instantly "dissolved", with nothing giving out their presence.
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