Newshound Ady & Flo www.sunlive.co.nz

It's taken me a couple of years, but finally I've figured out this whole possum business.

My friend Holly and her family.

As a young pup I've listened with wide eyes and ears alert, to the legends around the campfire of old Diesel, the chocolate crusader and champion possum tracker of all time. Ady's tales from her younger years of seeing the master in action were eye-watering. And his antics on the mountain.

'Just beware of the Nasty Crevice,” she keeps telling me. I have no idea what she is talking about.

So it was with great pride that I tried my first wild marsupial on Saturday night. It finally all clicked in my doggy brain, that if I sniffed around and followed the scent, then barked up the right tree, the boss would show up with my friend Ruger and blam – lights out for Mr Tree Muncher.

The boss was so pleased that I'd shown initiative and tracked the blighter down. Or up, in the case of these high altitude aliens.

The next night, just to show it wasn't a fluke, I found another tree with another invader. I was walking with the boss at the time. We'd traversed the Grassy Knoll, around the Rocky Outcrop and were coming up Sally Ridge.

I looked at him quizzically about the name of the spur, he just said that a few brave souls had been up Sally Ridge and then wished they hadn't.

About half way up, I got the whiff. I didn't need to do the barking thing as the boss was right there.

Just a cool sort of death stare, a look only a finely-tuned huntress as myself can convey.

There, staring back high in the rewarewa, were two evil yellow eyes and a fluffy tail, in a lofty perch up our mountain.

The boss picked up on the point, and before you could say 'pass the magazine of Winchester high velocity hollow points”, Ruger spoke from his muzzle again and I ran to intercept the ball of fluff crashing ungainly to Earth through the tree branches.

Carrying the quarry back to the camp to show Mrs Boss, she was less than enthusiastic to hear about my tales of hunting prowess this close to midnight. Never mind, the boss was ecstatic that I finally had found my marsupial mojo; and that his efforts to protect the native bush from these leaf munching marauders was a step closer to success. I swear I could feel the approving spirit of the old master whose ashes still waft the slopes and glades of his favourite mountain.

The stately native trees on the mountain can rest easy again, knowing they are safer, this time under the protection of bitch and bullet.

All I need now is a cape, a cool mask and someone to publish a comic book about my exploits.

Finally this week, best wishes to my distant cousie Holly and your surgery. Box on, girlfriend.