One of the disadvantages of having near-feral canids is that they retain the pack trait of being extreme creatures of habit. Once a certain set of events occurs, they expect them to always occur in the same order. Which is probably a good survival instinct, if you are patrolling and hunting a set territory.

If the wombats were here to be eaten yesterday, then we should probably check for them here again today.

But this means you need to gear your life to their routines. Or suffer the consequences.

We had steak for lunch, along with the usual veggies. With the heelers getting their 13 pieces of beef. (Four each, plus an extra for the Mom. It disturbs the pecking order if the boss dog does not get both first and last pieces. Hence the wife and I have become quite adept at dividing food scraps into exactly 4, 7, 10, 13, or 16 pieces in order to meet this requirement.)

Then I went back to reading the new Scientific American, trying to figure out if a grandchild of ours will ever live to see humans on Mars. But could not read because of the staring eyes of the little maskless heeler, the whining of the mother heeler, and the bumps against my leg from the masked heeler.

Routines, man, routines! You must not break routines!

After the little heeler began yipping at me, which led to a full howling session from her mom and sister, I was forced to abandon my article and go back to the kitchen. Where the sisters jumped up to place their paws on the stove, making it clear which step of the lunchtime routine I had forgotten.

The skillet. Filled with a tasty combination of cooked cow blood, wine and barbeque sauce. I made the mistake of letting them lick the skillet clean just once, and now we have to do it every time I have steak for lunch.

You kinda have to shuffle heelers around to make sure all three have a chance to get their tongues in. And then stand and wait, while they enjoy themselves. You cannot leave them to their own devices.

It is a non-stick pan. If you leave it down too long, the desperate heelers will eventually begin to scrape the non-stick lining off with their fangs.

Don't tell me it won't happen. We've lost the non-stick abilities on two pans to heeler fangs.