... when Anneke died and Sissie Mae became alpha....

What complicated it was that as my MudTrainer advised, a single male will often yield to a single female and let her be the alpha dog. Sadie had no desire to be alpha; F would defend his food but nothing else, and was miserably confused. Long story short, neither of them would take alpha. S didn't care but F did, deeply-- he's very much a pack-oriented dog and she's more obedience/rote in her thinking. He needed to KNOW. But he just was stuck trying to figure out what refused to add up.

So we juggled just a few things to make it clearer that to us, he may not be Alpha (Hardi is Alpha Male and I'm Alpha Female), but he is Top Dog, THE Dog, Best Dog, and-- among dogs-- immediately beneath Alpha Female. And he loves that, because if it's dog/dog, he's IT. And if it's human/dog, he's the dog-- except that he does see that Sadie is My Dog and he is Hardi's Dog. He doesn't LIKE it that she's my dog, but he accepts it pretty philosophically. He couldda been my dog but no, he picked Hardi, so I went and got me a dog that is my dog. He IS the better dog, but Sadie is, in many ways, more my speed. (F is so much like my BJ that I can't quite relax and just let him be my dog.) But he gets special time with just me-- laptime with momdog-- whenever he feels he needs to burrow in for reassurance.

And he is a gracious, non-alpha, midpack dog. When we foster a dog he is very welcoming, and helps them learn the ropes. In a wolfpack I suspect he'd have been the pup-sitter uncle.

~Susan