As I raised Josey – a German shorthaired pointer--I sometimes felt like I'd been put in charge of a top NBA prospect from some country where no one played basketball. He had all the physical attributes but had to be taught the fundamentals of the game--by someone who was just learning the game herself and had never had a bird dog. Josey was a thing of athletic beauty as he swept through fields head high, in a ground-swallowing, mud-clod throwing gallop. He was steady on point, if I could find him. Friends who knew better, bird-dog people all, said, "You've got to get that dog under control."

Josey settled into a point that visibly increased in intensity.

Truth be told, I kind of liked him that way. My outlaw, Josey Wales, named after the movie character. Boy, was I stupid. We both had a lot of growing up to do, and it happened on a bird-hunting trip to South Dakota.

The way I love Josey is unreasonable, really. I bought a stunningly dilapidated farmhouse with him in mind – it has 28 acres – even though it had no heating system, major electrical problems and no kitchen. I bought a camper so I could take him everywhere. I even bought him a (future) girlfriend, Lozen, another German shorthaired pointer, named after another outlaw, an Apache female warrior who rode the warpath with Geronimo.

He sleeps with me. I tell people he sneaks into bed, but that's not true. I pat the mattress and invite him up. He's allowed on all the furniture. He has a toy hamper, a Christmas stocking with his name on it, and a warm fleece coat. I'll eat Ramen noodles so he can have Pro Plan.

I figured South Dakota would be the best trip in the world for a bird dog. And my brother had married a South Dakota girl, which afforded me access to a sprawling private farm.

After the long trip from Pennsylvania, driving through the night, I found myself standing at the edge of an unbelievably expansive cut cornfield. First, I took pictures of the trembling Josey, getting low behind him so I could relive the moment in the years to come – my wonderful dog, gazing out over the field, poised to begin our trip of a lifetime.

Finally, with neither of us able to stand it any longer, I gave him a tap on the head to send him, and he jetted out there. And the nightmare began.

The first lesson – a wild pheasant is immeasurably different from a pen-raised pheasant. Josey was fairly capable back in Pennsylvania, where quail, chukars and pheasant had been dizzied and planted in likely places for him to find. On our first pheasant contact in South Dakota, he hit one end of a straggly shelterbelt and a rooster launched out of the other end, majestic and cackling, at least 100 yards away from me.

That was a preview of coming attractions, because it only got worse after that. Day after day, I watched hens and roosters flush well out of shooting range. It was hot. It's an understatement to say the birds were cagey. It seemed more evolved than pure instinct -- I began to believe they could hear me close the camper door in the predawn, and accordingly prepared for my arrival to the fields.