Condolences to all of those who've lost faithful companions recently. It's never easy, not even when they look at you and tell you that it's "time".
Had the opposite experience with my senior citizen shorthair Dasher yesterday. She'll be 14 in May, but still able to do very limited hunting. Looked like the last nice day for awhile here in Iowa (really nasty cold front just arrived!), so I took her and her kennelmate out for a hunt. 1 1/2 hours in nice CRP with Snowden . . . nothing but hens. Worked Dash in a stretch of ditch on a deadend road. Stub tail started twitching just as we were approaching a field drive that intersected the ditch. Rooster ran himself into a box and waited too long. Dropped him, she delivered to hand. That one bird, likely her last wild one, meant so much to me . . . and it was like she was saying "thank you for giving me that chance" when she delivered him.
