This is Dexter. He was the best Labrador Retriever I ever had the honor to hunt with - and he was mine. An English bloodline male that I bought from one of the Doctors in Nevada. I trained him myself. He would take hand signs but seldom needed them as he was an excellent marker. Total persistence on birds in the water and anything wounded that made it into cover. No telling how many otherwise probably lost ducks he brought back.
He was an upland natural too. Not a bird buster by any means, he would point and hold but not forever - he was after all a Lab. But he was good at it - real good. Always welcomed on hunts with the true pointing dogs. A real master at finding and retrieving upland as well as on the water. Twice, he brought me quail to hand when a shot had not been fired.
He had two faults. Loved to fight and if there was anyway he could get to an intact male, it was on. And he hated loose feathered doves. He would wander around acting like he was looking for a bird but somehow never find one after the first two or three of his life.
He's buried in one of the levees at Marais Temps Claire. Gone but never to be forgotten.
The photo is from the early '80's taken on Long Branch Lake during a memorable duck hunt - one of those clear windy flight days that every man who duck hunts or ever has never forgets.
RIP Dexter a true friend and a great dog.