A Comfortable Range Book

In his prologue, author Jim McDermott writes: "In my neurotic imagination, the field held any number of threats to the well-being of a bird dog ... but when hunting with Speck I most feared his push for the excessive range that led to loss. I wanted to keep Speck safe and, at the same time, I wanted to have the pleasure of watching him run, but it wasn?t easy to figure out how to do these things without diminishing his enthusiasm for our time in the uplands. Learning to hunt with Speck in an authentic way meant learning not to question the wildness in him.... More than anything else, that learning was what our quest for a comfortable range was all about." In this book, McDermott describes his struggle to understand his talented, independent English setter, Speck, at the same time he confronts his innermost fears for the safety of this much-loved gun dog. A Comfortable Range is a powerful personal narrative in which McDermott and Speck carry the reader from the confines of suburban Virginia to the sprawl of South Dakota, where man and dog ultimately find resolution to their quest for compatibility.Read More