It's been a number of years since I taught Mattie, a yellow Lab, to pick huckleberries.

She was an enthusiastic young pup who thought our tendency to stop and nibble berries was a terrible waste of time. She'd dash up the trail, run back, bark and dash up the trail again until I was tired just watching.

I started tossing berries to her to keep her from nagging us. She soon learned that if she pulled her lips back into a rather unattractive grimace, she could pick one berry at a time without getting a mouthful of leaves.

We went in search of berries the other day, and Mattie, now a more mature companion, was content to let us pick.

Piper, on the other hand, being a six-month-old black Lab, clearly thought we were mad.

Well, I thought, it worked with Mattie. Maybe we can distract Piper with the same technique.

Did you ever see that old video game, Pac Man (the first such game, I believe), that had a circular little character which gobbled up something while racing around through a maze?

Piper's new name is Pac Dog. She raced through the patch, ducking through the maze of branches and gobbled up berries faster than the eye could follow.

I've created a monster!

I missed the Pac Man craze, alas, but apparently there were also enemies which had to be dodged.

I don't know if Piper encountered any enemies, but Mattie and I were both attacked by deer and horse flies.

Still, several hours of diligent picking (above dog-nose level to avoid any licked-but-not-eaten berries) resulted in enough berries to make a couple of betches of jelly.

This posed a dilemma:

I love huckleberry jelly.

I hate heat.

By a complex system of opening and closing windows and shades, I've managed to keep the house cool enough that an egg left on the counter while I measure out ingredients for cookies doesn't become cooked through just from the air temperature.

However, making jelly involves a lot of heat, and I resigned myself to suffering.

I got out the sugar, jars, new lids, pectin, pots and kettles, and then, as I was about to sacrifice the comfort of the present for the tastes of the future, I did something unusual -- I thought first.

Summer used to be a time for canning and preserving, but that was a pattern set in the days before vacuum-packed freezer bags.

Who says you have to make the jams and jellies in the summer? Carefully rinsed, drained, bagged and sealed, it was likely the huckleberries would be in great shape this fall, when temperatures start to drop and a little extra warmth in the kitchen will be a good thing. I bagged the berries up in carefully measured amounts, took the pots, pans, pectin, jars and lids back down to the basement, and sat down with a hot cup of coffee and a cool dish of lemon freeze.

How about that? You can teach an old dog new tricks.

Lyndel Meikle works on a Deer Lodge-area ranch.