Stephen Wallace

“I've been keeping a hunting diary since 1985 and wish I had started sooner. I frequently go back into my scribbled entries, and relive outings I've had, some alone and others with partners. Some of those partners, human and canine, are now among the departed, though theit memories are preserved in my diary entries. My diary holds many memories; days of golden aspens and blue skies, a dog’s first grouse, pheasants in a snowstorm. Many days, however, more than I like to admit, I summed up, simply, as, “A long walk.”
― Paul F. Vang, Sweeter Than Candy - A Hunter's Journal

“While I have great respect for the pointing breeds, I remain a hopeless afficionado of the Labrador retriever. I love Labs; don’t ask me to explain. We just seem to understand each other and to approach the world with a fundamentally similar set of priorities, an admission with which certain co-workers and an ex-wife would no doubt agree. Because I make it a point to live in places where I can hunt a lot, my kennel has to be productive. It also has to be versatile, since any given day here on the prairie might provide the opportunity to hunt everything from Huns to geese. Sure, I could have Labs and more traditional upland bird dogs, but every place in the kennel occupied by something other than a Lab would be. well, one less Lab in my life.”
― E. Donnall Thomas Jr., Fool Hen Blues: Retrievers & Shotguns and the American West

“I think back, too, on the strange views that many people held about cats. They were selfish creatures reserving their affections only for situations which would benefit them, and they were incapable of the unthinking love a dog dispenses. They were totally self-contained creatures who looked after their own interests only. What nonsense! I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me are expressions of love.”
― James Herriot, James Herriot's Cat Stories

“I love a hound because he appears to me to be a dog of some spiritual significance. His sagacity begins where that of most dogs ends; where his ends, I know not. He has a perception poignant and true. He has taught me much about life. My obligation to him is that unpayable debt that we owe to one aa who has given us an insight into the meaning of existence; whose spiritual genius has led us to understand that life has about it a great deal more magic and mystery than people with dismally literal minds would have us believe; whose prescient hand has set ajar for us casements of the soul, through which are far gleams of what may be, for all I know, the gorgeous frontiers of Eternity.”
― Archibald Rutledge, Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways