I invited all the friends he has mentored, since all those who mentored him passed away long ago. I didn't have to ask him what he'd like to do for his birthday. I just did the same thing I'd done every year:

Bought a bunch of birds and baked the Bow Wow Beef and Bacon cake. Of course I invited his best friends' drivers, T.J., Jim and Chuck, who arrived with the German wirehaired pointer Colbie and the Brittanies Wyatt, Riley, Shamus, and Finn. As birthdays for dogs go, it was going to be quite the bash. His housemates Jamie and Viv also cleared their calendars.Of course, I worry now every time my 13-year-old birthday boy, Josey Wales, is running in the field. After all, in dog years he's 91. There's no end to ligaments and tendons that could be strained or torn. He can't hear.The combination of his slowing reflexes and failing eyesight makes it more possible that he'll get something poked into one of his eyes.We run the dogs in pairs. As Josey waits his turn, he starts to yowl a little from his crate so I feel he can at least hear the distant gunfire. In fact, as is the case with most high-powered bird dogs, he's long had a trait called "selective hearing." For example, in his younger days he didn't seem to be able to hear me calling his name, but from a sound sleep he could hear open a kitchen cabinet where the biscuits are kept. Now though, the hearing loss is real and I sometimes have to tap his shoulder to wake him.Finally, it's his turn. He'll hunt with the staunch Brittany Shamus, who is six. The two put on quite a show, each pointing a bird and also honoring the other dog on point. And with the last bird, something I'd hoped wouldn't happen did happen - I missed with two shots, and Shamus's owner Jim connected as the bird was nearly out of range.The hit bird slanted in flight and drifted long and low before seeming to fall to the ground. It was going to be a long and difficult retrieve, on the other side of a huge, nesting brush pile. I looked at Josey and he was peering in the right direction, so I sent him for the retrieve.He was gone a long time and was out of sight. From time to time I'd heard his bell. I started to imagine all kinds of things - he was stuck in the brush pile, his collar was caught on something, he'd slipped and fallen into the creek, he'd found the bird but was disoriented and headed the wrong way. Just as I was going to go look for him, I saw him coming.He was running in the new gait he's devised, throwing his front paws high like a prance; I think, because he's having trouble seeing and gauging the terrain in front of him. As he re-entered the field he headed toward Jim, the first human he'd spotted.I yelled his name and clapped my hands, then swung my hat around in the air. He readjusted and took a straight line toward me.Before they could walk, before they could see, Josey and his littermates ran in their sleep, their little brows furrowing, their noses twitching. I used to watch them and wonder - what could they be dreaming? At moments like this, as my old dog nears at the end of an awesome retrieve, I realize that we are heirs to a long-ago past, born already our best dreams. Happy Birthday, my old friend.