Fortunately for me, and for my older brother, Dick, dad did that with us, showing up not only when necessary, but all of the time. He’d push hard and expect a lot. But as with the dogs, he knew when to back off and knew especially when to forgive shortcomings.
“They haven’t made a perfect one yet,” he would say, meaning dogs and people.
Don Anderson, Dennis Anderson’s dad, after enlisting in the Army during World War II. A Fargo native, he served in North Africa and Italy. (Provided/Provided by Dennis Anderson)
Last fall, my sons Trevor and Cole and I were hunting ducks, and the birds were flying. The day was cold — freezing, really — and at the end of a long morning, Trevor was lining his Labrador, Flynn, toward a greenhead he had dropped on the other side of a backwater and up a steep hill, about 150 yards distant, a tricky retrieve.
Swimming quickly to the other side, Flynn raced up the embankment, but stopped about halfway and hunted left, then right. Trevor tried sending him back again, but still Flynn hunted short.
This continued for a couple of minutes before finally, having tired of not finding the bird, Flynn sat down and from across the backwater stared at our blind.
“A little help?” he seemed to say.
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