Pack Politics

When Monty was alive, he was the unquestioned leader of the pack. He was big and strong and tolerated no nonsense and wasn't afraid to let the other dogs know when they were doing something wrong.

Dr B warned me when Samba was quite young, that she was a strong Alpha and that I needed to keep an eye on her. He said that as Monty aged, Samba would look for a chance to dethrone him and it could get messy. Monty didn't live to old age, he died quite young and Samba immediately moved into the position of  pack leader.

It wasn't a completely smooth transition, however. Fudge was eyeing the top spot and was pretty sure that he was getting the big promotion. There were some frightening battles between Samba and Fudge in the first few days after Monty's death.

Samba had a huge advantage. She had the voting public on her side. Her six pups supported their Mom. They were used to taking orders from her and looked up to her, so it was a given that they would support her as their leader.

Morgan is a born follower. She accepts whoever is leader and doesn't question it. She's the uninformed voter who just goes along with whatever anyone tells her. She adored Monty, but she happily accepted her friend Samba as leader. Had Fudge won, I'm sure she would have happily followed his lead.

Then there is Tsar. Rob and I both think Tsar would make a great Supreme Court justice. He's cautious and checks everything out carefully. He shows no favoritism to any of the other dogs except perhaps Morgan. He tolerates her, but is perfectly happy to be left alone to do his own thing. Once when he was quite young, he challenged Monty. Monty quickly put Tsar down on his back and stood over him till I rescued him. He never tried it again. Tsar seems to be above politics.

Right now the pack seems to be running pretty smoothly, but Fudge is still longing for that top job and with Samba suffering with MMM, I keep an eye on the situation to make sure Fudge doesn't stage a coup d'etat.