Maybe it was a smelly old Chessy, or a cute-as-hell white Lab pup that once wrestled your kids and looked like a baby polar bear.
Or a semi-spastic golden that somehow got the job done with outrageous vigor. It could have been a poorly-performing chocolate that would kill itself trying and was a total sweetheart.
But somewhere, somehow, a retriever at some point sunk its canines deep in your heart.
Maybe it was not a great dog, but just happened to bear witness to a happy era in your own lifetime: Your personal good old days of hunting, a time when year after year you really got into the birds.
Sometimes a dog will nail you in the heart when you are in…
