There is a wise and priceless saying, something like “It doesn’t matter much what you pay for a dog – money won’t make him wag his tail.” And, Lordy, I thought about that yesterday when, on the prettiest Halloween afternoon I can ever remember, I watched a wizard and his dogs.

There was a slight nip in the air, but nothing the autumn sun couldn’t cure, and I was standing in a mountain field surrounded by a dozen of undoubtedly the happiest dogs I have ever been around in my life.

That’s right – happy. I’ve had dogs for the past 50 years and, while I’m no expert, not by a stretch, I can tell when a dog is delighted because I am too. So yesterday afternoon I spent some time with a man who has the God-given talent of finding a gun dog’s soul.

Some say Roddy Reynolds is the real “dog whisperer.” Some say he’s the best dog trainer in America today. And still others say he has mystical powers when it comes to getting a dog to literally achieve goals none of us would have ever imagined.

But he just laughs, shakes his head and says, “You’re forgetting about one thing – the dog.”

Therein lies his secret. Long ago when Roddy was a kid growing up in a Chattanooga suburb, he taught his Great Dane to pull him down the street on his skate board.

With Roddy holding on madly to that galloping dog’s tail, he would move his hand – and the dog’s tail – to the right, the dog would turn right. Move the tail up, the dog would run faster, move it down, the dog would go slower and so forth.

The lesson he learned was that dogs are highly intelligent and, just like people, they absolutely adore it when they excel, be it racing with 10 others to get a tennis ball first or, far better, earning their master’s praise. “A dog loves to do the right thing,” he says.

So in the past 20 years, he has trained literally thousands of dogs in a way few can imitate. He never yells at a dog. He never hurts a dog, either physically or emotionally. He never repeats any command more than once. And what is now known as a “Roddy Dog” is the most coveted retriever in the country.

If you got in line to have Roddy Reynolds train your Labrador Retriever, right now you’d be in maybe Lincoln, Neb., because that’s about how far the line stretches. Ask him when he can work a pup in and he just shrugs. Then he laughs and shrugs again.

But what he’s got is so rich and wonderful, a blend of common sense and love and hope that a wise bunch of people have finally convinced this gentle wizard into preparing a Hollywood-style video on how Roddy Reynolds trains a puppy. It will be out later this month and you can go to www.roddydogs.com to learn more.

Better yet, just go to the website and look at the pictures. His older dogs teach the younger ones how to excel, and to see six hunting dogs sitting together without so much as a peep is a rich piece of nature’s beauty.

Granted, a “Roddy Dog” is a retriever, but this is a deal anyone who has any kind of puppy can use to develop an animal that, in a word, will be happy. “Nobody likes to be yelled at. Nobody likes to be told ‘No’ six or seven times. Well, a dog is the same way.”

Roddy said yesterday the three basic commands any dog should know are “sit,” “heel” and “no.” Those, he explained, “are the foundations you build on and, when something doesn’t work, you go back to the basics and try again.”

What he can’t say is what happens inside a person when he, one who has loved dogs his entire life, stands in a field and sees a dozen animals, not one barking or playing but so rapt on the next hand signal, working in the autumn sun. The feeling is simply incredible.

And if I was a dog, I’d darn sure wag my tail.

royexum@aol.com