Answering my forty-first question!
Unfortunately the first part had been answered already, so I decided to have a silly answer.
Yup, ears are clipped right at, or near, birth for their tradition. Did it hurt? Maybe. If moved up enough in society, as mentioned previously, non gray wolves can have their ears clipped as a sign of social status; so it would be more appropriate to ask someone who has had it happened when they can know about it. Does it hurt? Yeah, not majorly, but will definitely not be pleasant for a while.
You may notice that Akire doesn't look as well drawn as the past few asks have been. Am I getting lazy on these? (Well yes, at times, but) Since I was redoing part of an old ask essentially, I figured I'd try to draw her in the same way as I did months ago. As in, rough, no actual planning, and just kinda going with whatever happened to the drawing. Quite the difference in a few months, I've been trying to get better when doing my drawings without any planning at all so I can make sure they're consistent.. Anywoof.