Hunting Doves with King Lear

I snuck out at sunup the other morning to hunt doves for an hour. My ageless wonder, Buddy the Black Lab, made the trip too.

Actually Buddy the Black Lab isn’t really black anymore—far from it. Entering the backstretch of his 11th year, Buddy has aged into the canine version of King Lear. So says a friend who has a particular high Shakespearian IQ. “He (Buddy) looks like King Lear,” she said in an email not long ago. “Unbelievable. I can’t believe how he’s changed. He’s an old man.”

I look at Buddy’s photos from years past and I don’t even recognize His Majesty. He went from charcoal black to geriatric white in seemingly record time. The good news: Buddy, despite his age, is the happiest dog you’ll ever meet; always has been, likely always will be. Instead of growing more jaded and curmudgeonly over time like I have, Buddy has mellowed and gotten only happier. Dogs, especially labs, are remarkable that way.

What’s more, Buddy’s desire to hunt is still insatiable. Unlike King Lear (so the play goes), Buddy has no designs on retiring and ceding his power; he’d rather hunt until his last breath (or until his arthritis cripples him permanently, whichever comes first).

But not even the best of modern-day pharmacology—and I’ve tried everything—can tame the persistent, nagging pain in his right leg or fix his omnipresent limp. One early-season duck hunt and I’m retiring Buddy for good. His old bones just don’t have the juice to bounce back anymore.

Still, there are moments, like the other day hunting doves, in which adrenaline and desire combine to mask age and ailment; when Buddy runs with the joy and exuberance of a puppy. If you’ve ever owned a dog, especially a hunting dog in its sunset years, you understand the beauty in this, and how you allow yourself, just for second, to believe the illusion is real. But, unfortunately, it’s not. In the canine world, there’s no cure for either age or arthritis; there’s no fountain of youth for King Lear to become Buddy the Black Lab again.

I’m slowly coming to grips with this melancholy fact. I’m learning to appreciate the small victories, our priceless moments together; those snapshots that eventually become memories heaped upon other memories.

Like his last dove retrieve near sunup the other morning. Not even Shakespeare himself could find tragedy in that.