Breaking in a new gun dog is a chore that’s only as unpleasant as you choose to make it. You can be demanding — screaming, hollering and getting physical — or, then again, just try to make it fun by taking the pressure off and letting the animal’s instincts rule. I prefer the latter. But that’s just me. Some prefer to play drill sergeant.

Buddy came to me in May at 11 months old. Friend Cooker — a breeder, field trialer and hunting buddy — owned him until then, had introduced him to limited field work, and was not happy with his retrieves. Seems my friend thought Buddy was clamping down too tightly on the birds, tried to quickly correct the flaw and built an immediate conflict that made the animal uncomfortable. So Cooker approached me before Memorial Day about taking on Buddy, figuring I could overcome the retrieving issue with my nonthreatening approach. He said the dog came from a royal pedigree, many national champions behind him, and would be an excellent stud for my bitch, Lily, a 7-year-old dynamo, also of aristocratic blood.

As I watch Buddy develop this fall, free and easy, I clearly remember Lily tagging along with Ringo six and seven years ago, then Bessie tagging along with Ringo and Lily two and three years back. Now Ringy and Bessie are dead, Lily’s the finished gun dog and Buddy’s the tagalong, as compatible a duo as I’ve owned. Buddy aggressively attacks a covert, investigating every scent that enters his alert nostrils, observing everything going on around him, totally deferring to Lily. He watches Lily pursue a scent, pick up the pace, flush the bird and retrieve it. He never challenges her for a retrieve, just moves gingerly into her space, watches, listens to my commands and will soon mimic the routine when I hunt him alone. I have absolutely no doubt about that, have seen it before, and, yes, have had to defend my laid-back teaching method to detractors who doubted my approach but soon witnessed positive results. I do not train to the field-trial standard. My dogs are flush-and-retrieve hunters, not field-trail dogs. They pound a covert searching for scent. I read them and follow them wherever they take me, a system that has always worked for me. Yes, I have a plan upon entering a covert. But when the dogs find a hot scent, I follow them, even in the opposite of my intended direction.

Buddy is not past the point where he searches for and chases anything, be it rabbits or squirrels, ground birds or field mice, burying his nose deep into thick, ground-hugging cover, pawing at the turf and coming up with a mouthful of frost-brown grass, maybe even a little  rabbit hair. He flushes pheasants and woodcock, will undoubtedly flush the first partridge he bumps, but isn’t yet focused exclusively on game birds, ignoring all else. That is not to say that even an experienced gun dog won’t chase a rabbit when crossing a fresh scent-trail where bird scent is scarce. But even during such an uneventful hunt, an experienced gun dog will leave rabbit scent immediately upon crossing the scent of a game bird. Buddy will soon display this trait, too, maybe this year, definitely next year and many to follow. Trust me. Depends how much one-on-one I give him this year.

Buddy’s best attribute is his proclivity to stay close, run tight quarters and keep track of where I am. I cannot take credit for developing these desirable tendencies. In fact, I am shocked, given the demeanor he displayed on walks throughout the summer. I’d exercise him through open fields and he’d pin back his ears and sprint the perimeter like a racehorse, the athleticism impressive to watch, and worrisome. Was he going to run like that in the hunting field? Well, the answer to that question, a pleasant surprise, was no. Put him in dense cover and he stays tight naturally. It has a lot to do with the covert, which holds him back, offers thorny resistance and is full or fresh scents to keep a dog’s interest. Were I running him through a cornfield or along the edge of corn stubble bordering a swamp, it’s unlikely that he’d stay as tight. The same goes for Lily, and Ringo before her. Put an athletic dog in a dense, thorny covert, and they’re a joy to hunt over. Put them in an open, shin-high rye field, or low, sparse brown cover, or along an edge, and they’re too fast for an enjoyable hunt.

When a crosswind is coming out of the covert, a good dog will sprint the periphery and quickly figure out if there’s anything within 30 yards, maybe more, depending on the barometric pressure, the lower the better. I avoid easy, open coverts like the bird flu, have many times watched in frustration from dense cover when the dog bursts out into a mowing or freshly tilled cornfield, runs 50 to 80 yards along the perimeter, comes to a screeching halt and bursts 10 yards into cattails, alders, multiflora rose or other dense cover. Within seconds you hear the “cuck-cuck-cuck-cuck” and watch a long-tailed rooster fly deep into the swamp. I have a chance when hunting with another gunner who’s walking the edge while I’m busting the brush. But even then, it’s never easy, because my dogs pay little attention to others’ commands, if my partners would even attempt to give one.

Like I have always told my hunting buddies after a wild flush or missed shot: If you killed them all, it wouldn’t be fun anymore, sort of like a fastball down the middle, even a hanging curveball. Sometimes you foul the cookies back, sometimes you swing and miss, sometimes you hit it sweet and foul. To me, wing-shooting is a lot like hitting a baseball. That’s why I love it, am driven to the coverts daily; rain or shine, hot or cold, limping or pain free, which, these days, is never, even with my knee tightly braced, ibuprofen circulating to inhibit swelling.

Those lingering knee issues bring me back to buddy Cooker, Buddy’s breeder. More than 20 years ago while hunting woodcock with a Northampton orthopedic surgeon who had recently scoped my chronic left knee, the doctor informed him that, if I didn’t promptly give up softball, my bird-hunting days were numbered. “In fact,” the doctor warned, “it may already be too late for him to be bird-hunting into his 50s.” Cooker just squeezed out a wry grin, shook his head and said, “You don’t know Bags.”

Well, I didn’t quit softball; kept playing until the leagues fizzled. Now 57 and stubborn as ever, I’m still chasing birds with a passion, a little mind over matter, a lot of ignoring pain.

I can thank the dogs. They keep me going, me them. Call it mutual reliance.