The heelers are having a hard time without their Alpha. As I type, the masked one is upstairs, trying to sleep on the wife's pillows.

The little maskless one is sleeping by the front door. Listening. Waiting.

Every time, and I mean every time they go outside, she stops and stares down the block. Due south.

"She went that way..."

Neither wants to come back inside. "She might be coming up the street right now, you know." The little one just staring, unblinking, due south. At first it was sitting at the bottom of the front stairs. Then on the sidewalk. Then in the yard.

Now she sits at the far corner of the property, next to the intersection, and stares due south.

I watch her carefully, now. This is the little heeler who ran off to find home when 15 miles out in the desert in the middle of a blizzard.

She may one day just decide she's tired of waiting, and needs to go find her Alpha.

I'm obviously too dumb and useless to do it. I haven't even tried.

But the worst has been Pill Time. Every morning, the little maskless heeler has to get five different pills. The wife, with her command presence (and skinny little fingers) just shoves them down the throat, one at a time, and Pill Time is over. No sweat, no fuss.

No stress.

I do not have the little maskless heeler's respect.

I'm just the guy who drives their truck. A chauffeur the Alpha lets sleep in her bed.

And I have big, fat, clumsy fingers.

Pill Time has ended up with the little heeler trembling, her mouth full of antibiotic dust from a burst capsule.

And me bleeding.

But the pills went down.

Today, it was time to try something different. Back to old tricks that work on Bostons, but our other heelers would never have fallen for.

Pills wrapped in Velveeta cheese.

The little heeler was trembling with dread when I came out of the kitchen. I ignored her. And turned on the TV, and sat down to enjoy an unusual breakfast of ham and cheese balls.

And almost instantly had two hungry beggars. Who did not seem to even notice that I did not eat a single bite. They were just too thrilled that I was taking my fork and giving the food to them!

Worked like a charm. Pray that I haven't just jinxed it.

The funny part?

The masked heeler has to take two pills every morning, too. And calmly accepts them being shoved down her throat, even by me.

But of the six cheese balls she was offered, guess how many ended up on the floor, not even bitten.

Yep. Two.

Guess which two.