Because of Blaze, I decided I wanted a German shorthaired pointer puppy, one from her.

I'd met her owner, Bill Weingart, when he and I, and many others, volunteered for a grouse/woodcock habitat project on abandoned coal lands in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.I was driving my pickup along the rough dirt land, towing a landscape trailer loaded with discarded Christmas trees, and passed Bill going the other way, his truck empty, a shorthair next to him in the front seat. We were using the trees to make brush rows to enhance bird cover.During the lunch break, I learned that Bill was part of a group who trained on the grounds at the location. He invited me to join them. When Bill ran Blaze, I watched the way they worked together and the way she looked at him, patiently, before he released her to hunt. The intelligence and urge to please gleamed in her eyes. I met Blaze's mother, Scout.Because of Blaze, I got one of her puppies, Lozen. Lozen, and Bill, led me into the world of field trialing. I learned what it was like to break away a good dog and follow it on horseback, no matter what the weather.I got to know Bill's wife and daughters, and later as we all got older, their spouses and Bill's first grandchild. I met Bill's field trial circle of friends, and added some new ones of my own.I had a nice ranch house on an acre, completely finished, but soon I decided I needed land, for the dogs. I bought a hopelessly dilapidated Barnesville farm house with 28 acres, partly, okay mostly, because the day I went to look at the property, there was a woodcock hanging in the marshy area at the start of the driveway. Never mind that the marshy area would later be the bane of my existence, with winter ice and drifting snow - once, and never again, I saw a woodcock there.Bill and his wife Sandy helped me move, loading my possessions in the horse trailer/living quarters that Bill used for field trialing. When she turned three, Lozen earned her field trial championship and also earned the AKC master hunter title, as we traveled to events in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia and Pennsylvania. We also traveled to hunt birds in South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois and Kansas. Because of Blaze.But now Bill and I are sitting in a room, waiting for the veterinarian to return with the syringe of medicine that will ease Blaze into the next life. Bill is also ailing, fighting liver disease, so I've come along to carry Blaze. She lies on the floor at our feet, comfortable and calm on a fleece blanket.Blaze never got any titles."She was the best hunting dog I ever had," Bill says. "I hunted so much with her last year, and I'm so glad. Up in Maine? She was great."The vet comes in and Bill lies on the floor, holding Blaze and telling her "good girl" over and over. It's very peaceful; it is truly as if she's been put to sleep.They are heartbreakers when they go, these dogs of ours. It's like a pact we knowingly make when we choose them - someday I will lose you and it will hurt unbelievably. When you love a dog in some part of your mind you're always aware of that.But in the meantime, oh, in the meantime! So many things in my life will change, but you may be the one constant. I will follow you into the woods and fields, and you will lead me to the finest people and places. We will share glorious moments, moments that make both of us believe that there must be a Happy Hunting ground, and that we will find each other there someday.