Pritch’s first exposure to water did not go according to plan. Jenny and I had driven down to her parents’ house in Jacksonville for the weekend. When we got there, I turned on the light in the backyard and let Pritch out. The small pool in the backyard was well lit, but that did not stop Pritch from mistaking it for terra firma. And before I could catch her, she barreled off the pool deck and into the water. I immediately swooped down and fished her out. Back on the deck, she shook like mad and started running in wild circles. That night (and for many that followed) I hardly slept, fearing I had turned my dog against water forever.

But a few weeks later at a small neighborhood pond, I waded in up to my knees with a puppy treat in hand. Pritch was on the bank bucking like a miniature bronco, not sure what to make of the situation. Eventually she stepped in gingerly and began dog-paddling toward me. Jenny was there to catch the event on film, and when I watch the video, I can hear her letting out a gentle whoop.

Gun noise was hard to produce in downtown Charleston, but we did our best. Jenny and I walked around banging pots together like a couple of ragtag musicians without any rhythm. The dog was nonplussed. Summer thunderstorms didn’t faze her. And when it came time to fire a gun in her vicinity, she didn’t flinch.

Introducing her to birds was tougher. Pritch liked her first bird so much she tried to eat it. Jenny was horrified that her sweet little pup had such blood lust, and I feared yet another insurmountable task. A retriever is no good if it eats your doves before you get the opportunity to do so.

In addition to the gun dog to-do list, I worked on Pritch’s retrieving skills every day at dawn and dusk. A pup’s attention span is short. You have about twenty minutes to get your lesson in before your dog decides she’d rather dig a hole than sit, stay, come, or bring a bumper back to you. Between lessons you hope your gun dog’s life is pretty uneventful. The goal is to make training and retrieving the highlight of the day. But I began to fear this wasn’t the case.

Jenny often took Pritch to the dog park, where, in general, mayhem rules and seemingly well-trained puppies pick up bad habits. According to Jenny, Pritch had even made friends with a spastic dalmatian named Faith and a French bulldog named Lulu. Eventually, I had to quash the dog park excursions, but by then Jenny and Pritch had taken to spending warm days at a friend’s pool, the two of them swimming like a pair of debutantes. The final blow came one weekend afternoon when Jenny and I walked into the local Banana Republic and a woman behind the counter looked at Jenny and said, “Where’s Pritchy? I have a treat for her.”

Eight months after I brought Pritch home, we found ourselves in a dove field on a warm September day. My little brown dog was now thirty-three pounds and had a brand-new blaze-orange collar. My brother, the one who had told me I would suffer for not owning a Lab, volunteered to be the gunner so I could handle Pritch.

Not long into the hunt, my brother hit a dove that fell in some thick sunflowers. I released Pritch, and she tore off through the stalks. As she slowed down short of the fallen bird, I stood up to watch, my heart slowly sinking, but she kept working the area, following her nose. When she found the bird, I blew three short blasts on my whistle as I had done on so many mornings, and she came charging back. “That was pretty impressive,” my brother said. “Yep,” I said, trying to contain my pride. “My wife knows how to pick a dog.”