Sophie is a real dog. I didn’t make her up as a composite of a bunch of dogs I’ve seen. She’s a four-year-old Labrador retriever. She was one of ten pups and lived exactly as they did. She wasn’t roughly handled or neglected. She wasn’t subjected to loud noises that weren’t also heard by the whole litter. She was cuddled, loved and handled as much and as little as the other pups. Her first owner was a man who wished Sophie to bond solely to him. He planned to make her a hunter. For the first months in his home, he was the only one who fed her. At about a year, she went to school to be a gun-dog. She handled everything just fine. She was trained with a remote collar and learned quickly. She wasn’t traumatized by the E-Collar and will happily do everything a flushing retriever is supposed to do. She is steady to wing and shot and won’t flush until told to do it. She gets the bird (or finds it if necessary) and makes a solid retrieve. In other words, she’s perfect in the field. That is obviously what she was bred to do. In virtually every way she’s the perfect hunter. What she isn’t, is a perfect pet. Continue reading →