A dog you love should live as long as you do. How often now have I said this to myself since I began hunting over dogs? That was 59 years ago, when I toted by single-shot .410 on some of my father’s shorter forays into the field. At nine, I didn’t shoot much game, but when at long last his gun dog died, I recall–more vividly that I do most things from that time–how I protested the plain injustice of it all. Like a father, a dog was surely meant to endure forever.