Sorry about your dog… we just lost our yellow lab, and man it's hard. I totally understand why you didn't hunt this past season.
I still have my Winchester 1400 auto with Winchoke (one of the 1st offered), and I just had it refinished a couple of years ago, great memories as my parents gave it to me for Christmas when I was 13 years old. But my favorite for hunting is my Berreta A391 Xtrema 2. It feels great in my hands, and is a dialed in waterfowl shotgun.