Ever had a dog that would not retrieve? Let me tell you what a problem that is if you’re hunting quail in the South. Here’s why: a quail is hard to find in the weeds and grasses, especially in broom sedge. You can look right at one and not see it. And in Alabama where I hunt, we have those Auburn University Improved Variety Briers. A trip through one of those patches will leave you needing a transfusion; so if your dog won’t fetch, you will lose half your birds and waste a lot of time and patience finding the other half.

Ole Leukos, my cockeyed setter, would retrieve—only not stylishly and sometimes only with a lot of coaxing. But he would retrieve. His boys, Dan and Freck, two of the best pointing and bird-finding dogs I have ever owned, would not pick up a bird much less fetch it to hand.

I love the word “fetch.” It is wonderful— monosyllabic and means, “Go get and bring back.” It is vocally economic and has no exact synonym. Remember, all commands to dogs should be single words like “whoa” and “heel” and “stay” and “sit.” Compliments, on the other hand, can be two or more words like “good dog,” and “that a boy, sport.” The exception is “Whoa, damnit! Whoa!”—a command that should be shouted just prior to the application of corporal punishment.

Now where was I? Oh yes. The offspring of Leukos would not retrieve; otherwise, they were excellent bird dogs. So what must one do? I shortly came up with a solution; for, after all, I am a doctor.

Deuce is big and brawny, with a coat so white it’s inaccurate to refer to him as a yellow Lab—he’s positively ghostly. When he’s hunting, not only is Deuce’s tail in constant motion, birdy; he also truly seems to have a smile on his face the whole time. We were after pheasants in a hilly region of Nebraska, working birds down a gully below a steep plowed field. German shorthair Gracie locked on point by the brushy fence line defining the hill’s slope. Deuce kept close to his owner Trent Leichleiter, awaiting the signal to flush.

Deuce has the complete Lab package: outstanding nose, athleticism, drive to retrieve, marking skills, and desire to please— which go a long way toward explaining why a Lab makes such a wonderful hunting companion. As Lab breeder Rod Mack says, “For overall balance in an animal, the Lab is hard to beat.”

When I was little more than a wee lad, outdoor writer Ed Park told me about a hunters’ tradition adopted from English literature. The Macnab is so named for the fictional John Macnab and his challenge to poach a stag or a salmon from a landowner’s favorite beat.

Over time, the Macnab came to embody the classic Scottish quest to take a red deer, an Atlantic salmon, and a partridge all in one day, between sunrise and sunset. But the quest depends on the environment. In Oregon, Ed explained, the hunter must tag a buck, catch a steelhead, and shoot a chukar. In the finest sporting tradition, the fish must be caught on a fly and the bird taken on the wing. The Macnab concept lingered in my mind, a tantalizing possibility.

When I found myself in eastern Washington on an October forenoon with a mule deer buck on the ground, I remembered the fly-rod and shotgun in the truck. The sun had not climbed to its zenith, the shadows still tilted west. This could be the day.