Newshound Ady & Flo www.sunlive.co.nz

We've been warming up for the hunting season with a few pre-season away-games.

Pegging out: Me pegged out, on top of Ady.

First up was a wild goose chase with the chaps in boats. We love going in the boat. Any boat will do. The boss bundled us into the crusty, trusty duck boat – the one with the flat bottom that rattles and thumps across the harbour so much that we have to hold our eyeballs in with our paws.

It's always worth it, because there's usually a wild bird or a fish, or even a run on a beach at the end of it.

This week the harbour was nice and flat on pegging out day, so the ride in the punt was a joy. Riding on the foredeck with our ears flapping in the sea breeze and nostrils flaring was all good, till a little spitball of dribble from my flapping jowls curled around the slipstream and sloshed across the boss' sunnies.

A few choice words were spat back into the sea breeze, I can tell you.

We had a ball on the beach, gathering up seaweed into an old sailbag for Mrs Boss' vege garden.

It all ended on a high note, with a goose or two in the drink, and two keen dogs putting all our retrieving practice to good use.

We did a perfect double dive off the foredeck and rounded them up, no worries. Only trouble was, those big old Canadas are so darn heavy, it took two of us in full throttle dog paddle mode to drag the beasts to the boat. Well, actually Ady did most of the work, but I did some pretty impressive circling while she snapped German precision instructions.

It was a big day on the water, and the boss had brought along a flash new bean bag for our ride home. He was not impressed that the two dogs preferred to settle down for a nap together… on the mouldy old sailbag full of seaweed!

Ah well, there's no accounting for taste. A great day out, another reminder of the paradise on our back door step.