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And so terrier-face and fatty became my betas. A plus side to dog politics was that once everyone knew who was in charge, people readily accepted the roles assigned to them and there was only very infrequently any bad blood between us. Promoting the two dogs was as simple as just letting them resume their old duties around me. Both dogs immediately became calm and unstressed when I let it happen. Both of them were submissive to me, but dominant and assertive to the other canines, just as betas should be. The day I let them resume their duties, I learned a lot about how an Alpha should behave.

For starters, a lot of it was just how one carried himself. Our communication was still limited, but I could observe the way the two dogs acted around others. The way their stride would get just a bit more stiff legged around other dogs and the posture of their neck and head would change, demanding respect. The other canines would avert their eyes and lower their heads, submitting. But with the submission came a sense of calm because dogs always wanted to be told who was in charge. It is stressful not to know, like the sense of being on a boat and not knowing if there's a captain or not.

But the point of being Alpha wasn't simply to go around dominating the other dogs constantly. I learned to loosen up, watching terrier-face and fatty and mimicking them. It wasn't so much as an occupation so much as just being Alpha when it really came down to it. Funny thing is that once I calmed down and just started being myself - granted, myself plus an extra air of supremacy - the other dogs started to calm down as well. There was a sense of settlement rather than rebellion. I wasn't on edge anymore, therefore things were probably going well. I learned that I was something of a barometer for the rest of the pack. They were always watching me, seeing how I responded to the environment for cues on how to behave themselves.

That was probably the worst part of being Alpha. That sense that everyone was depending on you. I had to be alert for everyone else, even if in our controlled environment there was practically no danger and anything that did happen to us couldn't really be prevented. I think I realized that fact more than anyone else there. As for the lack of privacy, it didn't really bother me. We all lived in an open space. There was the concrete house, but that was simply a place to go when you were feeling cold, more or less. We lived outside and so none of us really had anything a human might call privacy. But the extra attention was a bit disconcerting, at least at first.

Another change to my daily life after winning my fight with the shepherd-lab was my behavior at the food dish and the water fountain. I realized I didn't have to "train" anymore the day after that first ravenous day I got back from the lab. It was such a relief not to have to fill myself with water so many times a day and simply drink when I was thirsty. When feeding times came around, however, I still found myself putting away four or more of my double sized bowls at each meal. My stomach volume had not decreased with my victory and the burning hunger that lived with me constantly rendered me mouthwatering every time the lab techs appeared with the beloved kibble. I didn't eat till I was nauseous at every meal, although I still sometimes did. But almost always I ate till I was stuffed and it took so much food to get me into that comfortable state at least for a little while.

Fifteen days had past after I'd become Alpha and I was beginning to wonder if the shepherd-lab would ever return. Tensions in the pack had peaked and now were now ebbing swiftly as I took cues from terrier-face and fatty. After my initial encounter with the chocolate-lab, I began spending more time with him and he in turn introduced me to his close friend, an energetic collie-mix. He had a habit of turning in circles when he got excited, and so he became "Spinner" in my mind.

The chocolate-lab also had a reoccurring name in my mind that became more pronounced the more time I spent with him. We were at an age where our eyes were changing color, our coats were subtly shifting and our paws and noses were turning black and rough with constant use; granted, we were a little old for our pads to be changing, but a lot of us used them a whole lot less than the average dog. But the chocolate-lab's nose remained invariably pink and it stuck out amongst the darkening colors. So he became "Pink Nose" to me.

I wondered at first why Pink Nose was even friends with Spinner the collie mix. We were at the music toy and I had been looking forward to furthering his education with the shape of tones. However, Pink Nose seemed distracted and asked me to wait with a cold shoulder. I hesitated and the part of me that was learning from my two new betas thought that I ought to assert myself over this apparently insubordinate labrador. The feeling was stronger because Pink Nose was a lot fatter than I was still and also he was older than me by at least two months. But something held my paw.

It was the music. That might sound sappy, but it's true. The music stayed my paw because even if I forced him to obey right now, what would that cause? Pink Nose would certainly be too cowed to contribute anything meaningful to the music I wanted to create with him and probably too shaken to learn anything either. It was then that I recalled what the black lab had told me, seemingly forever ago. That a regular Alpha was good for most of the dogs here in the yard, but not all. Not for those like me and him... and Pink Nose as well, I realized. So with a sigh, I let go of the aggression inside of me and my hackles slowly smoothed against my neck as I waited.

Spinner arrived around the corner of the house with a flourish. He bounded towards us, his black and white coat seeming to sparkle in the sunlight. His ears were floppy and his tail too thick for a true border collie, however, and his coat was slightly stiffer. You could see his labrador heritage in his nose as well. But the way he held himself on his feet was all collie.

Like my brother, Spinner belonged to that sub-class of us which seemed to reach and certain weight and then peak. Their appetites did not improve and they seemed to burn off whatever they ate. Spinner was even lighter than my brother, although still quite obese in normal terms. He came right up to the seated brown lab and threw his forepaws right and left of his much greater bulk, barking twice gaily. Then he threw himself up on the lab chest to my shock, and rested his forepaws on the lab's shoulders. In a culture where mounting was a signal of dominance and most dogs didn't like being mounted in any direction, Pink Nose took this affront with extreme serenity. Spinner slathered the lab's face with licks like they hadn't seen each other in years and then dismounted. Then he saw me.

He took one heavy step towards me, but I made him pause with my stare. Then Spinner seemed to remember who I was and his tail fell like a deflating balloon. He looked up at Pink Nose for guidance and something passed between the two that I couldn't recognize. It occurred to me then that perhaps some of the other dogs were also communicating, in ways different to the pseudo-language me and the black lab had developed for each other. At any rate, Spinner calmed and walked over to introduce himself more formally. I stood and sniffed his rear and he sniffed mine. From the smell of his bottom, I could tell that Spinner was younger than myself. Come to think of it, I did remember a hyperactive black and white pup from one of the spring litters, about two weeks after me and my brothers arrived. I also gleaned things about his state of health and his diet, although from his waistline alone, I could tell a lot about the way he ate. And he could tell the same things about me as he smelled my rump. We did twist around a bit because I was a lot longer than him and he had to reach up to smell properly. This seemed to amuse Pink Nose.

But then Pink Nose did something quite odd. He rose to his feet and padded over to Spinner, sandwiching him between our two massive bodies. Spinner stood and gaped merrily, looking to me, then him then back again, as if this were a great game. To me, his mind seemed about as blank as I'd ever seen a dog's in the yard. Then Pink Nose gave me a significant look and then pointed with his nose to the music toy. I took his meaning, at least partially as I angled my body towards it. At the same time, however, Pink Nose moved with me and so we kept Spinner corralled in between us. He didn't, for some reason try to back out or resist us moving him. When we were at the board, Pink Nose looked at Spinner and they shared eye contact. Then both of them sat simultaneously.

By this time, I was fervently curious. What language could they be speaking? I didn't realize that the other dogs here could learn to speak in a such a way, similar and yet different to the way both the black lab and I had developed for our own personal use. Or maybe I was deluding myself with hope. It might have just been body language, after all. The style we shared in the yard was more expansive than the common variety and it had always seemed to me that its communicative ability was enough for most of the dogs here. Still...

Pink Nose looked at me, then the board where the colorful shaped buttons were. I lifted an eyebrow at him and then settled my paw on the Sun to get us going. I started simple and Pink Nose began adding some familiar instrumentals with regular taps with his paws to the sound effect buttons. Spinner seemed excited at first to listen, in fact he salivated on the plastic board more than a little, but pretty soon, it was clear that his attention was starting to wane. His eyes were darting around and I could feel from his bottom against me that his legs were fidgeting in a way suggestive of standing.

Pink Nose startled me with a fierce snap in front of Spinner's nose. Spinner cringed and more unspoken words passed between them. They were remarkably still when they did so, but my doubt that these two were talking in a way more complex than basic body language was fading. Spinner settled down and I decided to respond by increasing the momentum of the tune and throwing in a few more repeating elements into the harmony. I changed the shape of the additions by deleting parts of them and stacking, just as the black lab had once done with such ferocious skill. Pink Nose lost a few of his cues, listening in awe to the soundscape I was creating, trying to understand how I did it with my flashing paws. I empathized with him, but snapped at him to get him to pay attention to his parts; his inattention was starting to throw me off.

Spinner's eyes brightened with our exchange and it was clear that the music was having some effect on him, though from the blank look on his face, I could hardly tell what it was. Then his interest began to wane again. His fidgeting against me was more and more annoying as I sought to bring some subtly to the quick moving rhymes and rhythms in the harmony. I think that some of my work was going over even Pink Nose's head, but I was lost to the music already. The skill at the board had come back to me intact, but I scarcely remembered how much fun this had been!

It came as a surprise to me then when Spinner got up, rubbing himself against my thick flank as he did and wandered off. Pink Nose stopped playing his parts altogether and the harmony I'd created stuttered and then fell apart into noise. I looked at him as the toy silenced itself and deleted yet another sonic fabrication. Pink Nose was hanging his head solemnly. I could only take that he'd been expecting something to happen which didn't and that something had to do with Spinner's presence. Pink Nose was profoundly disappointed in... something. And I longed to know what that was with every fiber of my being.

I touched under his jaw with my chin and made him look up at me. He did and we looked into each other's eyes for several long seconds. I saw a deepness in them that I hadn't noticed before. I whined a little and tried to conjure up some of the things the black lab and I had communicated with our eyes in our patchwork "language," hoping some of it at least would cross the barrier between us. I tried broadcasting my sympathy towards him and the fact that I understand, or at least am capable of understanding, as well.

Recognition danced inside of his eyes, and something more, perhaps what Spinner saw when he looked into Pink Nose's eyes, but I could make nothing of it. But he knew that I knew now and very quickly, we had another project to work on besides the music. Learning how to talk to each other.

The work of it went rapidly, far more rapidly than the development of language that had taken place between the black lab and I had gone. Most of it was translation work to start with, but I quickly realized that my own signals were far more complex and overreaching. Pink Nose mimicked my vocal whines and grunts, my tail movements, ear flicks, lip and head movements. I in turn noticed the amazing depth that subtle movements of the eyes could confer and sowed them into my own library of terms.

Pink Nose's language was one primarily of emotion and intent. The black lab and I had evolved our own for the purposes of conveying abstract thought that body language couldn't. I thought that the two complemented each other nicely, not to mention that Pink Nose's original manner of speaking was much more rapid and natural once you learned how. As for Pink Nose himself, he already had a pretty solid grasp on what it was to think of the past and of the future. Some more abstract concepts came harder, but overall, he was a quick study.

To my everlasting surprise, not a day had passed after Pink Nose and I had begun to sit down and decipher each other than Terrier-face and Fatty joined us. It should have seemed natural, I suppose, for them to be curious. After all, they spent most of their time around me. But theirs was not just idle curiosity as it turned out. The first time, I thought they were just watching us and that our subtle movements and their meanings would be lost on them. But then the very next day, they both began to mimic us, me in particular.

Then, as I was trying to refine Pink Nose's movements symbolizing the past participle, I saw all three dogs gathered around me performing the same movements in turn. The idea hit me like a peal of thunder. What if other dogs could learn? What if they could all be taught? What wonders might happen if we could all speak freely? I couldn't even imagine the answer to the last question, but I was filled then with a determination to try it. After all, I was in no better a position to get other dogs to listen to me and they were all watching me anyways.

So I took my betas under my wing as well and although with them, it felt like starting from scratch, they proved to be no less competent at learning than Pink Nose was. Terrier-face was a quicker study than Fatty, however, and that fact sometimes led to "disagreements" between the two which oftentimes amused me.

Four days after I'd taken in the betas for language lessons, nearly three weeks since I'd last seen him, the shepherd-lab returned. Naturally, it was unannounced and without ceremony. One of the lab techs simply walked him around the corner about an hour before breakfast. Someone ran to the gate and barked, one of the three month olds. I got up, knowing something was out of the ordinary and saw him arrive with many others clogging the gate. The man with the rope walked slow, and that was because the shepherd-lab was walking slow, slower than usual at least. From the pained look on his face, I could tell that he was already eager for a good sit down despite the fact that he was clearly still doped up. But that wasn't the thing that shocked me about him.

The shepherd-lab now ambling slowly towards us had lost a good deal of his previous horizontal girth. The skin was still sagging pretty much to its original depth at his belly, but there was a sallowness that had crept upon him, visible in the loss of flesh at his flanks, in his chest and from his neck and cheeks. The shepherd-lab seemed to have lost about 15% of his previous body weight in the span of three weeks.

I had been preparing all this time to have to defend my title if and when the shepherd-lab returned, but just looking at him now, I could tell that the fight had left him. He looked sick and his gums were pale as if he'd gone through the worst trial of his life in the past month. I felt pity and sympathy for him more than anything else.

"Back!" the man shouted at the gate and us being dogs, the sound of a human command was like a voice from heaven. Everyone except me backed away; because I was Alpha and I was already far enough away from the gate for it to swing inward. The lab technician led the slow moving, but still enormously fat canine into the yard, loosened the loop around his neck and left without further words. The shepherd-lab just laid down where he was at, carelessly. We stared at him for a time, but one by one all of the dogs began to find other business to attend to. One sick dog wasn't worth the attention. He was no longer Alpha.

The shepherd-lab had doomed himself to not only abandoning Alpha with such a weakened appearance, but even a higher position in the hierarchy. Only his size would prevent him from sinking down to the omega ranks where I'd spent the majority of my life. And still he might sink that far if he didn't recover enough to defend himself in the next day or so. I didn't go to him that day. Partly the reason was that I knew that he was still on the drugs the humans had given him, I could smell the dope through the pores of his skin. But there was also just the plain dog sense of being repelled by weakness and sickness, even driven to attack it sometimes. I just didn't want to be around him like that, he seemed a shadow of his former self. I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like for him.

The former Alpha slept through breakfast amazingly and that did him no favors to preserving any form of status. In the afternoon, he got up wearily and hobbled to the fountain to drink. He laid his deflated, but still huge bulk down beside it, until a hound-Rottweiler mix showed up and shooed him away with little effort. He walked a short way and collapsed again. The shepherd-lab rose to eat finally at dinner and some of his old hunger showed, he took five and a half bowls, but two hours later, he suddenly vomited up about half of it.

The next day he was much less ill and ate heartily at breakfast, but his spirits still seemed low. He only seemed to move when he had to and walking looked uncomfortable. I noticed the scars on his hind feet and realized with a pang of guilt that I was responsible for his current condition. Another dog challenged him as he was laying at the fountain, but this time, he resisted. When the old Alpha got to his feet and the would be challenger, a dog that was likely the brother of the dog from yesterday, realized that he was over doubly out massed by the shepherd-lab, he backed up and found something else to do. The shepherd-lab waddled a few short steps away from the sparkling fountain and collapsed with a sigh. That was the time I decided to make my move.

I left my betas behind, not because I didn't trust them, but because this was something that was beyond "Alpha business" as I thought of it. Mercy and forgiveness was not part of what a canine Alpha was responsible for, this was something purely un-canine.

When he sensed me nearby, he lifted his head and a growl played at his lips, but no sound emerged. He then prompted lowered his head and then went further, rolling slowly over to expose his belly to me, grunting while he did so. On the still massive paunch, I could see the scars from our last battle, just as his still marred my hide as well. I walked past his belly and went to lie down at his head so we'd be even. I looked into my old opponent's eyes. When I looked for the old hatred that used to fill me when I looked at them, I felt nothing instead.

His eyes looked back at me with nothing but bland perplexity. How I longed to know what he'd been through! What could have happened to reduce him in such a fashion? Had the humans done it, or was it all my work? The drugs had passed through his system now, but the old fire in them seemed to be dead as I'd suspected. He was waiting for me, I knew, but I didn't know what to do. It would be so simple if he could speak and right then, there wasn't a dog I wanted to speak to more.

So instead, I licked him on the snout. He seemed surprised, so I licked him again and then put a paw on his nose. He snorted and returned with an outstretched paw of his own, which his missed with utterly, instead batting at my ear. I laughed a playful growl and rolled over onto my side. We began tussling with our paws and our heads like the puppies we were. I got him to laugh, and that felt like a huge accomplishment.

The shepherd-lab wasn't fixed quite so easily. He demonstrated an new intolerance to being on his feet and a diminished appetite after his post recovery binge. It was indeed his hind feet that were hurting him so and my awakening mind never ceased to torment me when I saw him struggling to get around the yard. But though they caused him pain, the strength didn't seem to go out of them as I discovered one time whilst trying to coax him into play and more normal social behavior and I got a good kick to my belly while standing over him. I fell on him in response and we had a good two minutes of friendly wrestling with no biting. My attention to him also protected him from being abused by some of the other dogs in the yard.

As for the shepherd-lab himself, his mind remained largely an enigma to me for a long while. It was because I felt so driven to "fix" him that I decided to start hosting my language sessions with my betas and Pink Nose near him. We started just sitting down adjacent to him, but it didn't take two days of this for him to sidle over to us, curious as to what we were doing. I knew he was sharp.

So it was that the shepherd-lab, my old nemesis became my student of language. I was starting from scratch again, but I had more experience with that now that Terrier-face and Fatty were beginning to rapidly improve and furthermore, the shepherd-lab proved to be a faster natural learner than even Terrier-face.

Things started to progress rather rapidly at that point.