We'd talked about it some time. But especially since this spring, when it became so obvious that, when in country, the masked heeler was primarily navigating according the jingling tags on her sister's collar.

Last week, while sneaking up on some pronghorn to classify atop the Divide (Atlantic branch), the masked heeler just walked right off a three-foot embankment.

Never knew it was there.

Retracing back to the truck, she ran into a brisket-high rock, and fallen tree roots.

Later, as they walked themselves home from the post office (my hands full of a week's worth of mail and packages), she pressed herself against my leg because her sister's tags couldn't jingle right with the leash wrapped around her collar.

What our nearly blind heeler needed was a way to track other pack members.

Namely me.

So, one of the little metal bells retrieved from last week's wedding was put into use today, on a test run.

My left boot was belled.

And every step with that foot brought a light little "jing".

I first tried just tying the bell to a lace, but with it dangling free, I sounded like Santa Clause and all of his reindeer.

I swear, both heelers glared at me as I tried to walk around the house.

"How we gonna sneak up on anything with you making a racket like that?"

But with the bell tightly laced in, I sounded like a less offensive elf.

Don't know how well it will work, though. Only hiking we did today was on open sand dunes, so there wasn't any reason to keep the blind one close.

Just the same, as you can tell from this drag race...

She knew just exactly where I was.