Joe Allegretti writes: Ammo, while still only five years old, began his sixth hunting season along with his half-sisters, Pepper and Remi. A Labor Day Weekend dove hunt at our farm produced a couple of hundred birds, including my son's first limit. The weather was mild and the dogs were able to handle the morning heat with dips in the stock pond.

Two weeks later we were off to the Cannonball Company in North Dakota. Ammo, Pepper, and Remi all rode together in the back of my Suburban. We hunted in steady rain the first day, but the dogs handled it well. Ammo did a great job all three days. Pepper, who likes to walk at heel, started flushing lots of birds on the second day, and by the last day, youth prevailed as Pepper flushed and retrieved more birds than Ammo. On the last day, I was able to find a personal "honey hole," a patch of cover between the end of a corn field and the end of a ditch, both of which were being pushed by our hunting party. Pepper flushed and retrieved three roosters for me in about ten minutes. Having shot my limit, I simply handled the dogs, watching them flush and retrieve birds as we walked a pasture back to the road. It was a satisfying way to end a successful trip.

In November, we attended a junior pheasant hunt in Gorman. Ammo and Pepper flushed the four birds planted in our field, and retrieved the two birds the boys managed to knock down. We would then have to take a break from hunting as shoulder surgery prevented me from hunting for the next two months.

We hunted Canadas the last week of the season in northern Nevada. I had four goals for the weekend: watch my son get his first goose, watch my friend get his first goose, have Pepper retrieve her first goose, and, finally, shoot a goose myself. Three of the four goals were achieved; and while my son didn't bag a goose, he did get some shots at some and definitely hit a couple with his 20 gauge. When Pepper got her chance, she wasn't too sure how to handle the still-live goose, but she was able to retrieve it once it was dead, no easy task when the goose weighs 15 pounds. Pepper now has followed in the footsteps of her sire, Sting, the Montana Goose Dog.

The hunting season ended the first weekend of February at the Kern Refuge with a junior duck hunt. My son and his friend each bagged a teal with Pepper making nice retrieves on both birds. It was my son's friend's first duck. It turned out to be a year of firsts-first dove limit for my son, first duck for my son, first goose for my friend, first duck for my son's friend, and first goose retrieve for Pepper. It is very fulfilling watching Ammo and Pepper do what they love to do, what they were bred to do-retrieve birds. We look forward to more productive years with Ammo, Pepper, Remi, and my friend's new pup, Cody (Longplain Double Hutch ex Longplain Solis Orta. "Cody", aka "Astro" is a litter brother to our young bitch "Solis".)