FREEMAN, S.D. - Dogs bound through the switchgrass, hunters in orange caps advance in a row behind them. The sun shines, and even if there aren't many pheasants to shoot, all is right with the world.

In the time and place where I grew up—Sioux City, Iowa, in the 1960s and early “˜70s—hunting dog breeds didn’t live in the house, period. It simply wasn’t done. The proper place for a bird hunting dog ...