Birds in the hand are always cause for celebration...but sometimes things don’t work out the way they’re supposed to. Photo by Dave Carty.

The bird folded and dropped the moment I shot. Hanna had found a small covey of Mearns quail a few feet up a dry wash, pinning them in the duff under the scraggly branches of a mesquite tree, her nose just a foot or two from the tightly clustered group of three.

It had been an easy shot. Two birds peeled away and flew into the manzanita and scrubby mesquite up the wash, but the bird I shot--my bird--flew almost directly away from me. I raised my gun, centered it, and fired. I distinctly remember thinking: That is a dead bird.

The little cock fell on an open patch of sandy soil, the kind of dry, Arizona red dirt that can sandpaper away the pads on a tough dog’s feet. Hanna, as she had been trained, remained steady. I held her there for a few moments, and then with a sharp “Fetch!” sent her in for the retrieve. And that’s when the whole picture-perfect episode began to unravel.

The bird wasn’t where I thought it would be. I’d lost Mearns quail before--too many on this trip already--but even so, I wasn’t that concerned when Hanna and her Brittany kennelmate, Powder, weren’t able to come up with the bird right away. The cock had fallen on a slope that pitched down into thick grass lining the wash. I was sure it had rolled down there.

But it hadn’t. Powder, who is by far the best retriever of my three dogs, made several runs through the wash (admittedly at my insistence) but never gave any sign that she’d cut scent. Hanna had disappeared, having rocketed up over the far bank a few seconds after I’d released her.

And then I remembered: I’d seen a bird scamper up that way moments after my shot. I’d assumed then that it was a bird from the original covey that had decided to run rather than fly, something Mearns occasionally do. Had that been my bird? I really didn’t know. I still don’t. I spent the next several minutes calling my dogs back (with no fresh scent for them to work, both were bored and anxious to continue hunting) and forcing them to re-search the area. But my bird was gone. Fifteen minutes later, angry and frustrated with myself, I reluctantly gave up and sent the dogs on.

I’d like to be able to say that that was an isolated incident, but it wasn’t. When you hunt as much as I do, lost birds are a sad fact of life. But that is small consolation, and over the years, losing wounded birds has become harder for me to justify, not easier. I’ve found birds that other hunters have shot but not killed days and perhaps weeks after the fact, scrawny, feeble little things that were undoubtedly in pain, and I don’t like being the responsible party. Don’t remind me of the harsh realities of the wild and that death in nature is rarely gentle; I know all about that. It doesn’t change things.

So, since losing birds is never something I’m going to be comfortable with, what, you have every reason to ask, have I done to prevent it?

The first is that I’ve tried to become a better shot. I could write a Greek tragedy about my failings as a wing shooter, but I will say this: at least I’m not as bad as I used to be. What progress I’ve made is due entirely to my practice on skeet and sporting clays courses and an occasional (and not particularly cheap) lesson from a touring pro. Good shooting, I’ve discovered, is not a skill you’re born with; it is something you have to learn. I’m still learning. But this is a dog column, and from here on out I’ll be talking about the canine end of the equation.