About 16 years ago I got a German shorthaired pointer I named Buck Run Josey Wales, who died January 15. He would have been 16 January 20. I think back on all the great memories I have, and it’s a particular afternoon – which had nothing to do with hunting – that stands out. That afternoon, Josey showed me just how beautiful and true the bond between a person and a dog could be.

He was the first dog I had that could share my love of hunting. As I learned to train a dog bred to hunt birds I felt as if I were a coach in charge of say, a top NBA prospect, a gifted athlete with all the tools to be great, if someone could teach him the game.

Josey’s progress - watching him apply the word concepts from the yard training sessions to the actual bird hunting, was nothing short of amazing. His understanding of other concepts also amazed me, such as Gun means we’re going hunting and No bird, she missed it (again).

We trained together for hours. This was my plan one fall, when Josey was 4 - I would archery hunt mornings and afternoons and bird hunt during the day. I would tow a camper to Ohio, South Dakota and Illinois, traveling with Josey.

Then, just after Labor Day, my mom was diagnosed with a fatal illness. I stayed home, going with her and my step-dad John to the cancer doctor, to the blood transfusions, to the chemo treatments and finally to the emergency room, where she was admitted to the hospital. A week later she came home on hospice care.

During those weeks, I only came home to sleep. As I got ready to leave each morning, Josey would go to the kitchen and stand in his best point, paw up and head focused on the place the door would open, in a mute plea.

No, I’d tell him, you stay. I’d have to put his biscuit on the floor; he’d be too disappointed to take it. I broke his heart every morning, but when I came home, he greeted me with happy jumps.

My mom died November 1, 2007, with my stepdad John and I at her bedside. That afternoon, with plenty of family there with John, I slipped home to let Josey out.

I did, let him back inside and sat on the couch. Josey put a tennis ball in my lap, pushed it into my leg with his chin and looked from it to my eyes and back to the ball again, so there could be no mistake – Throw it. No, I told him. I was crying. Go lay down, but he insisted with another chin push, Throw it.

There aren’t too many things that can’t be made better by the sight of a German shorthaired pointer rocketing across fallen red and yellow leaves on green grass in enthusiastic pursuit of a tennis ball on a sunny fall afternoon. Somehow just for that afternoon it was no more complicated than that – Throw it. Throw it and I will run across the dead leaves. I will leap, as a thing of athletic beauty, for the high hops. Throw it as the light shifts, from afternoon to twilight. Throw it even when we are both tired, so tired, throw it even though it is just one small thing you can stand to do. Throw it, he insists, again and again, like he knows, it’s a place to start.

In past months Josey was failing. He could walk but I often had to help him to his feet and carry him up the steps into the house. Just a few weeks before he died, during a patch of warm weather, a group of friends and dog friends came to my house to have an early birthday party for Josey. He pointed two birds, held for the shots, found the retrieves. Sometimes it seemed that he’d be with me forever. I’m lucky to have his son and grandson, Jamie and Homer.

Walking around on the farm, it’s like I can imagine Josey everywhere, because he was everywhere, pointing, hunting, running on these grounds. I’m walking on a path one morning with my dog Homer and it washes over me, missing Josey, pain, and I’m crying so hard I can’t see to walk. I’m wiping my eyes when I see Homer coming towards me on the path. He is bringing me a stick and I know what he wants. Throw it.