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In my first month in my new home, I had little on my mind save annoying the other larger dogs the very best I could. I was little and knew little save my own impulses over which I was constantly building a shaky scaffolding of rules of conduct. The older dogs, however, often seemed at once noble and reserved and stuffy and full of themselves. I honored, envied and abused them all in the same breath.

Aside from the other dogs, there were also plenty of toys which were littered around the pen. I liked the bumpy rubber things the best at first because they helped with the pain in my gums. Later, when I began losing my baby teeth, I liked them even more. Aside from my favorites, there was a plethora of different kinds of toys with many different textures, tastes and smells. Often they were abused, but never did shreds litter our living area. The man who came to clean up our poop every day after breakfast also collected toys who'd outlived their usefulness, or become dirty beyond identification. We got new toys as fast as the old ones wore out, but I never got to play with these. The older and larger dogs claimed the new toys for themselves. I didn't view this as wrong, it was the natural way of things. Just as it was natural for me to try to steal one of them when a big dog wasn't looking.

Tearing and ripping the fabric of a toy gave me a visceral pleasure that harkened back to the most animal part of my mind, the part of me that was still strongly linked to the wolf from which I am descended. Likewise, I shook and tossed my toys and they became my prey in my mind, myself the fearless predator. I was playing, but I was also not playing. Biting soft, squeaking toys felt empowering.

But I didn't just play alone. I spent practically all of the time I was awake - and not eating - in play, and really most of it was with the other dogs. I chased my golden brother with the dark brown tail and he chased me. We wrestled sometimes, but I didn't instigate it often because he was better at it than me; at least at first. He sometimes bit me too hard on the neck and I'd yip in pain and he'd stop; for myself, I blissfully forgot about the incidents as soon as the pain was gone. And when we went at some of the larger dogs, we tag teamed them, one at the face as a distraction, one biting their heels. It was always exhilarating and it was not long before the bigger dogs stopped stepping on us without breaking their stride. We showed them we had spirit.

As for my two heavier brothers, I do not remember as much. I'd occasionally see them somewhere in the background. They were taking the opposite approach to mine and my close brother's. They were keeping out of everyone's way and being submissive to anyone who ventured a challenge. I suppose it is a valid way of doing things, but that path rankled me from the start. I was too playful and wild to roll over on my back willingly.

By the end of the first month, though, when I was fourteen weeks of age, the constant fighting was already starting to get a little old. By that time, some of the bigger dogs had learned to avoid the two of us and although that in itself was showing submission to us, it wasn't really what I wanted. I just wanted to have fun and not be trodden upon and have a chance at some new toys to break in. Of course, it was also difficult breaking habits, as much as I, and likely my brother as well, wanted to integrate with the pack.

Not to say that we were outcasts of course. We were young, so we were tolerated, no matter how bad our behavior was despite the fact that none of the dogs here were what you might call "adult," though the yearlings were indeed sexually mature. But after that wild first month, I did at times - usually when I was by myself - attempt to form a softer relationship with some of the other dogs. That was when I first noticed the social grooming.

Upon reflection it makes perfect sense, but the first time I noticed it was baffling. You see, I was still operating mostly on instinct and for dogs, licking the ears and face was about the extent of social grooming. And although it was useful in showing submission and forming a bond with another dog, what I observed in the pen with the other male puppies was several steps beyond that. Simply put, this behavior was an artificial construct and had little basis in the part of my mind that was inherited genetically. Wolves and dogs didn't do this by nature; it was something that had been creatively invented some time ago, copied and passed down until all the male pups learned at some point. Likely this was why I didn't notice it was going on the entire time.

It happened when I wandered into the concrete house that was our only shelter in the pen after noticing a good many dogs lying around inside. They were heaped together, so it seemed, and I felt that perhaps it was a good place to snuggle down for a nap. I had just finished getting out of the rough end of a wrestling bout with my brother, you see and I was avoiding him for the moment. I cheerfully padded my way inside, curious but docile and just in the right receptive state for some learning. And I did learn a lot in there.

There were ten dogs all told and they were crammed into the left half of the single room. They were crammed not necessarily because of how many they were, but because of how they were laying around each other and also because most of them were the heaviest dogs in the place. The black and white collie mix was sprawled near the center; he was noticeably heavier now for an extra month of bolting food down his eager maw. He was busily licking and pawing at the distended belly of the second fattest dog here, a lab-shepherd mix who was dark tan and had a black muzzle. He'd lick the sparse fur on the round pink tummy and stroke the fur around the sides where he could reach in a bizarrely human fashion. Even more bizarrely, however was that the very obese collie mix was in turn being licked and stroked by three other dogs.

They were at his belly, his rump and his lower back. Three other dogs lounging around him, stroking and scratching the fur with their claws. Another, significantly lighter collie mix was at the prodigious belly and there I saw the many dozens of raw red stretch marks lining up like sand dunes all along his flank and abdomen where the fur was sparse enough to see. There were even more of them than I last remembered a month ago, closer together, redder and visible over an even larger area as his belly expanded and caused the fur to become sparse. The collie there licked almost exclusively. He licked down with the grain of the fur, wetting the downy pink skin, undoubtedly soothing the irritated stretch marks. The other two dogs stroked the rough fur at the collie-mix's rump and back. Long black hairs came away with their claws and pads. It would be a while before I realized that the collie was receiving a service that he could no longer perform himself due to his size.

But if the heaviest dogs seemed to be getting preferential treatment, it was only because they were in the most need of help. The lab-shepherd mix also had two other dogs in addition to the collie mix grooming him. Each of those dogs in turn had one scratching their backs. So the dogs were arranged in an almost star-like configuration, the heaviest ones in the center, flattening out to lighter ones at the fringes. Naturally, I stepped forward to investigate more.

I gravitated to the black mass of the labrador who I hung around. He was not in the center, but he was close. I had to step through the prone forms of lighter dogs who usually had no one grooming them, unless two happened to be close enough to scratch with their hind paws. Inside the circle, the scrap of tongue against skin and of claws through fur was practically deafening and the smell of moist skin and saliva was pervasive. When I reached my "friend" - although he still did little more than tolerate my presence - I sat down and stared at him and my surroundings a little while, cocking my head in simpleminded confusion.

When I whined a bit, he reached over his thick neck and licked my chest and entire face with one swipe of his great tongue. I stood and shook and he snorted canine amusement. He laid back down to continue licking the dog in front of him. I was slightly miffed, but also in a mood to please. I put my paws on his chest and then crawled up and over. I sat and then laid down on my side, eager to copy, eager to learn. I put my forepaws on the back of the black lab's neck and pushed my claws in as hard as I could. Of course, they were no where near as sharp as my teeth, so the lab didn't mind. So I laid there rubbing my paws in the lab's fur every which way, playing as much as anything else. It was strange and new, so I stayed there a while. I even licked one of the thinner dog's tummy for them for a while, but they didn't seem to care for it as much as the larger dogs with all the stretch marks; that was a visual signal I picked up on pretty fast.

Not surprisingly, I got bored after a little while and wandered outside to drink water and relieve my tiny puppy bladder. I didn't realize it yet, but I'd just engaged in something usually only reserved for higher primates. It would not be long before I grew to love the grooming circle and the pleasures it offered.