Werewolf VS Wild Wolf Behaviors

Greetings, Champions! Today we’re going to talk about the bones of the Pack of Dawn and Destiny trilogy: real life wolves!

First up, I have to admit that for this trilogy I abandoned my plans of using a fairy tale as the base. I originally planned to do something Little Red Riding Hood themed, and if you look closely you can still see that theme in initial relationship between Greyson and Pip, and in the way I branded their romance as a forbidden love kind of thing.

However, as I started doing research on wild wolves and compared on contrasted it to common werewolf tropes in fiction, I grew a little indignant and I ended up focusing more on wolf behaviors and accidentally left the whole Little Red Riding Hood thing on the roadside. (I had a few last ditch attempts to work references in, but my beta readers said they felt too out of place and forced, so I took them out and decided to double down on the wolves aspect.)

So, what did I find that made me so driven to make changes to my werewolves? Basically…everything we hold as a werewolf trope is wrong.

First of all, let’s tackle the whole alpha wolf/fight for dominance thing. The phrase was originally coined by a researcher Rudolph Schenkel in 1947–who when observing CAPTIVE  wolves said that wolves fought for dominance. Other scientists/researchers piled onto this bandwagon and wrote books on the subject, only to find out that the idea is completely wrong compared to what wild wolves actually do. (On a depressing side note, a lot of scientists/researchers who wrote books/articles based off this bad information have begged publishers to stop spreading their outdated work, but most publishers have refused to do so.)

The root of the problem is that Rudolph Schenkel observed two packs of captive wolves when writing his original paper, and now we have plenty of video and photographic proof that show wild wolves act very differently from their captive counterparts.

In the wild, there is a male/female pair who are the heart of the wolf Pack…that’s because they’re Mom and Dad. And I mean that literally. Wolf packs tend to be very small, and what fiction literature would tell us is the alpha pair are what scientists now call the breeding pair. The breeding pair have puppies and then their puppies stay/live with them. They care for the entire pack because it’s their kids living with them.

So wolf packs are actually family units. The members of the Pack will change as the wolf puppies grow and some will eventually leave to start packs of their own, but this fight for dominance thing doesn’t exist. The breeding pair don’t rule with iron paws because they’re the most deadly, rather they make decisions (like whether or not to have puppies) because they don’t want members of their pack starving and dying.

Additionally, Pack members don’t pick on the puppies–wolves actually love puppies–but since the adult wolves are either the puppies’ parents or the puppies’ older siblings, all adults will take part in educating the puppies on acceptable behavior and actions. (Huh, weird. I’ve never known a single older human sibling to ever boss a younger sibling around, or inform their younger siblings they know what’s best. Must be a wolf thing.)

This information alone was enough to make me dive headfirst into focusing on trying to adjust werewolf tropes to hit closer to the reality of wild wolves, but I did find out some other information on wolves that I thought you might like to learn.

Most interestingly, it’s been thought that the reason why wolves get such a bad rep in fairy tales, fables, and other historic stories (ie: the aforementioned Little Red Riding Hood) is because of the way they hunt.

Wolves aren’t built for swift kills. Despite the popular depiction in urban fantasy/paranormal romance…wolves don’t actually have claws. The only real weapons they have are their teeth and their pack. Blood warning–though I’m going to keep the description as fast and basic as possible–but wolves hunt by running their prey until it falls/stumbles, and then they go at it with their teeth. They can’t pounce like a big cat, or use their claws like bears. This means the way they hunt and eat is pretty gruesome to observe, and seems way more horrible than a big cat making a fast kill. (In doing my research, I found that, interestingly enough, a lone bison or elk could stand up to the wolves if they didn’t run, or–even better–planted themselves in water and refused to give into their flight instinct. Wolves will catch fish on occasion, but they aren’t interested in hunting big prey in water.)

I tried to use real life wolf hunting methods in the Pack of Dawn and Destiny trilogy–as seen in the way they get Pip to run during play hunts, commonly go for throats and bellies, and generally try to knock their opponents over–but I had to be really careful because wolf hunting is pretty gorey, which made me understand why wolves would be extra terrifying to humans historically speaking than a lynx or a mountain lion, who have much cleaner kills.

That’s all for today, Champions. I hope you enjoyed this mini wolf lesson! Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day!

Character Profiles: Aeric, Shania, and Wyatt

Last week we talked about Alpha Tom and Alpha Dale, so I thought we’d continue the theme and talk about three wolves from the Northern Lakes Pack: Aeric, Wyatt, and Shania! All three of whom are loosely modeled after real friends of mine! (And yes, Aeric and Shania are a couple, and Aeric and Wyatt are best buds!)

Loyal, happy go lucky, and remarkably open and friendly, Aeric is one of Pip’s long time friends, who proves his loyalty and trust in Pip again and again throughout the PoDaD trilogy. He is best friends with Wyatt, and is dating Shania–Pip’s friend and coworker, and is responsible with Wyatt for coining the phrase “Pomeranian Puppy Powerup!”

Aeric is from Canada and is a timber wolf–though I did ease slightly away from traditional timber wolf coloring a little to make his wolf have more red hair to match his human form. He is one of the few werewolves in the Pack who was born a werewolf, which meant he was born with the strength, endurance, and abilities of a werewolf–including shifting into a wolf.

I created Aeric and Wyatt to be Pip’s remaining ties to the Pack after her adoptive parents die, and Lynn and Hudson leave. And in the first book they seem to be exactly that–friends who hang out, but aren’t ride-or-die kinds of people. As the trilogy progresses, however, you see that the pair all along have considered themselves to be much closer to Pip, but they’re smart enough to refrain from pushing their relationship with her, and as a result keep things more casual. (Basically, Pip was picked to be a close friend by this pair all along, and she had no idea as they hid it between all the aggressive snuggling and light-hearted jokes.)

Aeric is a wonderful friend for Pip and a rare type of werewolf thanks to his cheerful and open personality. He’s excellent at lulling people into his orbit–as displayed by Pip–but his good natured personality would never take advantage of this, even though he has enough power of his own to be an Alpha if he wanted. (Which, he doesn’t. He’d never be able to leave Wyatt. Or the Pack. But mostly Wyatt.)

Shania is Pip’s work friend, and Aeric’s girlfriend who is turned into a werewolf in book 2, United. Her wolf form is a Red Wolf–which is an endangered sub-species of wolf–there’s only about 300 left in the world. It’s typically a smaller wolf, coming in-between a gray wolf and a coyote size wise, and it lives in the Southeastern region of the USA.

When I first designed Shania before writing the books, she existed to round out the duo of Aeric and Wyatt, and to serve as a gut punch for the werewolf-turning plotline of United. But when I started writing her out, she fast became so much more. As a human, she’s able to give Pip a safe venting space and still understand some of the finer points of life with werewolves since she was dating one, and as a wolf she–more than anyone else–has an easier time of inspiring Pip’s Wolf Kiss powers because of that friendship between them.

She’s very funny and chill, but while her wolf form would normally mark her as someone regulated to the back of the pack due to a smaller size, Shania’s fierce and loyal heart has her staying with Pip to watch her back, leaving Pip free to use her powers knowing nothing will get past her friend.

Smart and possessing emotional intelligence by the boatloads, Wyatt is the other half of Pip’s long-time friend duo with Aeric, and is also great friends with Shania. Though he bemoans his lack of a girlfriend, Wyatt is a trusted and respected member of the Pack, as seen by his frequent interactions with humans for his work, and that he is frequently chosen to guide new werewolves after the transformation process.

Wyatt is a gray wolf, though he is what’s called a melanistic wolf because of his dark fur. Like Aeric, Wyatt is capable of being an Alpha–and he would be a more traditional alpha given his larger size and that he is so trusted by all. However, like Aeric, Wyatt has no desire to leave the Pack (or his friends) and is content with his Pack life and many friendships.

Wyatt’s emotional intelligence makes him more aware of Pip’s struggles than Aeric, but that intelligence is how he knows that goofy Aeric and their friendship shenanigans are the best thing for Pip–who is wary of deep emotional ties with werewolves at the beginning of the trilogy. Wyatt was also the reason why Pip and Greyson were forced to tell Wyatt, Aeric, and Shania about the mate bond before anyone else, because he was likely only a day behind Pip in puzzling it out.

And that’s all for Aeric, Shania, and Wyatt! I hope you liked their characters–I had so much fun with them. I probably most enjoyed writing them–besides Tom, Dale, and Mayor Pearl, that is!

Curious about the wolf forms of the rest of the Pack? I don’t have specific types picked out for everyone, but I did design a few! Rio and Hector are both Mexican Lobo – Gray Wolf hybrids (which is historically and biologically possible!). Their coloring comes from the Mexican Lobo, but their size is from the Gray wolf part of their wolf forms. Moira is a tundra wolf–as mentioned in the books–while Ember is a Eurasian Wolf! Greyson is also a specific subspecies of Gray Wolf…but you’ll learn more about that in his post!

And that’s all for today! Thanks for reading, Champions, and have a wonderful day!

Greyson’s Hot Chocolate Recipe

Since Hazel was a tea drinker and Leila was a coffee drinker, I knew for Pip I wanted something different, which is why I chose to give her an obsession for hot chocolate!

Greyson is an excellent mate, and in Fated he admits that he learned how to make homemade hot chocolate specifically for her. I went through a lot of recipes in figuring out what ingredients he needed and I tried a few recipes myself, but I was more than a little surprised at all the requests I got for Greyson’s recipe, so here it is!

Ingredients:

• Approximately 1 cup milk of your choice (Whole or 2% cow milk will make for a creamier, richer taste, but if you REALLY want a rich flavor, add some cream or half and half)

• Sugar (I use a large tbsp but you might want 2 tbsp depending on if you choose to add toppings and how sweet you like your drinks)

• Baking Cocoa Powder (A heaping tbsp, but again you can add more to adjust for your taste and based on the cocoa powder you use)

• Large pinch of Cinnamon

• Large pinch of Nutmeg

• Splash of Vanilla extract (I’m very generous with my vanilla–it smells soooo good–so I usually add two splashes.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: To get your hot chocolate to taste the best, you really want to focus on the kind of cocoa powder you use. Most recipes I came across recommend Dutch Cocoa–I bought mine at Penzey’s Spice–but I also used the Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder for baking, and that turned out fabulous as well. (I also made some with store brand baking cocoa powder. It was tasty, but the Ghirardelli and Dutch cocoa was definitely a big step up. If you don’t want to buy the fancy baking cocoa powder, I’d suggest you cheat and add in a few semi sweet chocolate chips to melt in the milk!)

Second note: Adjust the cinnamon and nutmeg to your taste–the less sugar you use the less spices you’ll want to use, or the nutmeg can make the chocolate taste slightly bitter. In general I’d say use more cinnamon than nutmeg–nutmeg is a very flavorful spice!

Heat the milk in a saucepan on the stovetop–don’t let it boil or it will get this gross skin on it–and stir near constantly. Once it warms to a drinking temperature you want, stir in all of the above ingredients.

I personally think it tastes best when topped with whipped cream and/or marshmallows! (Especially whipped cream because then you can add sprinkles or chocolate or caramel drizzle if you’re feeling fancy!) But Greyson is not going to stretch his cooking skills, so he typically gives it to Pip without anything extra. (Unless he needs to apologize for something. Then out come the sprinkles!)

Does anybody have homemade hot chocolate recipes they’d like to share in the comments? I was astounded by the huge varieties in recipes I found when I was doing my research, but as I experimented I realized it mostly comes down to personal taste! If you are curious about the other recipes I found I linked to most of them on this Pinterest board.