As a former professional dog trainer, it is hard to admit that my 11-year-old Gordon Setter “Maggie” has me perfectly trained. I never entered her in a field trial, although she would have excelled in the sport, just as she has excelled in everything in her life — including training me. In fact, if dogs could enter humans in “field trials” to demonstrate how well they had us trained, I would have a multitude of blue ribbons around my neck.

People say dogs can’t talk, but they can. You just need to learn how to listen. In a weak attempt to save some semblance of my former professional dog training credentials, I will say that I began to teach Maggie to “talk” as an experiment.

Teaching her a language we both understood was just reward-based teaching, really, and it all began when she would greet me in the morning with a rousing “Roo, Roo, Rooouuu,” a sound somewhat similar to a baying Coonhound. Not quite the same, but if you have never heard a Gordon’s unique voice, it is close and is just an expression of their general enthusiasm for life. And when you hear that sound, it means they are wide awake and ready to DO something!

So, when I would stumble into the kitchen half awake in the morning and she would greet me with this unique voice, I would immediately set her food down, which gave me four precious minutes to make my coffee and try to catch up with her. Guess what happened after the third day of this routine? “Roo,Roo, Roouuu” came to mean “I’m hungry and want to eat — now!” And food magically appears…

Although Maggie has spent a great portion of her life with me, often accompanying me to work and always on vacations and every hunting trip since she was five months old, when I retired two years ago, and we began spending 24 hours a day together, she saw this as a capital opportunity to teach me some new words.

Three whines in a row, with the last going up a full octave, means “I want to go outside.” She will then walk to her door of choice, front or back, and repeat the three whines, indicating that is where she wants to exit. This is generally determined by where she has seen a squirrel or some other critter she wanted to harass. The first three whines, you see, were designed to get my attention from whatever I was doing so I could watch her go to her preferred door.

And so it went until Maggie had taught me a fairly impressive vocabulary that included just about everything a dog would ever want. Food, water, treats, walks, rides in the truck, want to play, need to go outside, and “leave me alone, human, I’m napping” all have their own unique sounds. She even functions as an alarm clock, rarely missing 6 AM by more than a minute with her two low whines. And it all works…

It must be a magical world.

The only time Maggie is totally silent is when she is hunting, which simply means she requires nothing, as that is what she would rather be doing above all else. And she is astonishingly talented at her job. I stopped leading years ago and simply follow her, as wherever Maggie is, that’s where the birds are. She doesn’t care whether I shoot the birds or not, and more often than not these days I don’t. She just wants to hunt. I accommodate her as often as possible.

When the hunt is over, she sleeps in my lap or in the front seat of the truck, and once home, there is the familiar “Roo, Roo, Roouuu!”

It must be a magical world.

Now, if only I could whine in just the right tone and the doorbell would ring and I would be presented with a David McKay Brown .28 gauge side-by-side shotgun, and a Harold “Pinky” Gillum bamboo fly rod, and a million bucks with the instruction, “Go have fun!” I think I would believe in magic myself.

Maggie may sound a bit spoiled, and in truth, she probably is. But the thing is, dogs never ask for much more than the basics that should keep us all happy. So I give it to her. In return, she never really abuses our mutual language and has provided exemplary companionship her entire life.

I still think I’ll work on just the right whine myself. Who knows?