On a sunny day on the fall of 1990, I was aboard a train traveling through the beautiful countryside of northern Italy. As I watched the rich, green valley of the Po River pass by my window, I was reminded of an area where I hunt ruffed grouse near my home in Manitoba. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of game could be hiding in the root crops and corn.

During one of the many unscheduled train stops in the middle of nowhere, for unknown reasons, I noticed a man walking in the field about 200 meters from the track. He was carrying what I assumed to be a shotgun and appeared to be following a hedgerow that angled toward us. Un cacciatore, I thought, a hunter!? As I pressed my nose against the window to get a better look, I could see that the hunter was not alone; he had a dog. It was fairly large, had an orange and white coat, and was about 50 meters to the hunter’s left, trotting along the other side of the hedgerow.

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