Some might consider the love I have for my dogs to be unreasonable. With the dogs in mind, I bought a jaded farm while overlooking significant, daunting flaws - no heating system, major electrical problems, and floors with a funhouse-like tilt.

The dogs sleep with me. I tell some people that they sneak into the bed, but that's not true. I pat the mattress and invite them up. They are allowed on all the other furniture as well. One of my most important duties is to function as their driver. Last Saturday was National Dog Day; every day around here is National Dog Day.Years ago, I attended a pointing dog training seminar in Kansas. The trainer doing the seminar asked for a show of hands. Which of us attending the seminar believed that their dogs loved them? About half of us raised our hands. The trainer shook his head sadly."You people will never get far training dogs, if that is your belief," he said. "A dog doesn't feel emotions; a dog works for a reward, because a certain behavior works for the dog and it gets what it wants."Another moment I remember from that trip happened between my dog Josey and me. After attending the seminar, I'd planned to hunt pheasants for a couple days. I stood with Josey at the edge of a sandy road, overlooking an incredible expanse of sorghum fields.As I readied his training collar and my shotgun, I looked down at my dog to find he was looking up at me. Sleet was hitting us sideways and my thumb was already numb at the safety. The sorghum was bent in the wind, until its seed heads were nearly touching the ground. I touched Josey to release him and he jetted off into the wind.But just as soon as he was out of sight he had swapped ends and was coming back, charging at me. When he got to me he stood on his hind legs, paws up against my jacket and looked me full in the face.It was as plain as if he had spoken. "Thanks for bringing me!" Then he turned and went back to hunting. The roads in that area of Kansas, near Hugoton, separated the fields into blocks; and at the end of each "block" we'd see 20 birds get up and fly. With the harsh grayness of the day, the gorgeous wild pheasants burst into the scene like thrown paint.When I went back to the vehicle to swap dogs, the then-puppy Lozen fairly danced with excitement when she saw and smelled the rooster tails sticking out of my vest. I put Josey away and walked her to the beginning of the next block. After she was released, she did the exact same thing Josey had done - jetted out, charged back, stood on her hind legs with front paws up on me to say, "Thanks for bringing us!"You know the wind is bad in Kansas. It can make your eyes burn.Josey will be 15 in January. He is losing the strength in his back legs and sometimes, when he's walking across a hill, he'll start sidewinding, going downhill. Last week I witnessed this starting to happen, but Josey was joined by another dog, Harry, an English Setter who's here for training. Harry stood on Josey's downhill side and supported him.It was an achingly-beautiful thing to see. And I thought of the trainer from the long-ago seminar, the guy that said dogs don't feel emotions. I had just witnessed a dog's capacity for respect, compassion and could it be? Affection for one another?I believe it. And for all of us who do, every day is National Dog Day as we celebrate their roles in our lives.