You're almost making me rethink of 'reloading' again,
that's all very familiar from how our younger female (by 6 mo.s) wanted to become the alpha to how fierce she was, but only if the male was around, to how she imitated everything he did.
We'd get home from work around 10 p:m and let the dogs out first thing in a noisy scramble. The male would mark the first bush out the door and remark every tree and bush in the yard. One night when the female was about 10 mo.s old she followed Jacques (spousal named him, I'd fill out Jock at the vets :)) out the door and waited while he watered the first bush then stepped up when he went on to the next and lifted her leg perfectly and held it there just like he did. Nothing came out, but we both fell on the floor laughing and never got tired of telling the story. Probably funnier to be there, to our friends our dog stories must have been worse than pulling pictures of your kids out.
