Bringing up two heeler puppies (sisters) has almost driven me to distraction during the long winter months. In between vowing that I will never have two heeler puppies at the same time again, let alone sisters, I have really enjoyed the look on my husband's face each time I tease him and tell him that I'm planning to open up a Blue Heeler Rescue Ranch. If that's the case, he growls, then one of us is going. And I suspect that he doesn't mean himself.

Now that the weather has warmed up a few degrees and the days are a tiny bit longer, I have suddenly become aware of the fact that I am inextricably a part of a heeler dog pack. When I go to the barn, Lila Jane and Red Dawg stick to me like glue, sometimes so close behind me that I don't realize they're actually following me. I call and call for them until one of them bumps me with a nose like, "Uh, we're right here, you blind and deaf girlfriend." If I go inside of the house for a drink of water, they wait right outside the door, pressed against it. When I take a horse out for a ride, they trail right along at, yes, you guessed it, my horse's heels. In the morning when I let them back inside the house from doing their business, and no one else in the house is awake yet, we wrestle in a pile on the floor in front of the woodburning stove. At night when I take a bath, the heeler pups come to check on me, hanging a blue or red head over the edge of the tub to see if I'm all right, but not too close or for too long for fear that I'll suddenly recognize that they are in need of a good washing.

The three of us are tied together like a group of climbers summitting a peak. We are entwined like a bright red ribbon braided into a horse's mane. We are bound together with something even more sticky than the sap of a pinon tree. I've been a part of a family and part of a horse herd for a long time, but I've gotta tell you, I'm liking this heeler dog pack thing.