Oh that's cool. The guy is teaching the yukkuri to be intelligent.
Whether or not this is merely to torture the mother through emotional detachment is debatable, but it's still better than the yukkuri growing up dumb, singing badly, shitting everywhere, and not understanding logic.
I think patchouli is best suited for defense here. a nice toss of a brick could knock a wolf out cold.. .. but will patchy be smart enough to throw a brick? hm.