Pepper (age 6 months) with Decoy and Bumper

Pepper (age 10 months) with Katelyn

Pepper (age 6 months): a bold retriever!

(Pepper looks like her daddy, Gumbo of Black Forest!)

In addition to raising Labradors, Maggie and Joe McKone are raising three kids, Kelsey, Katelyn, and Kaleb. In their other lives, both Maggie and Joe help people and save lives. Joe is an Emergency Room RN and Maggie is an Adult Intensive Care Unit RN, both at St Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Maggie and Joe have arranged their lives so that they both work a "weekend package". This gives them all week off to raise their kids and to hunt and fish during low-pressure weekdays -- it's really a sportsman's dream schedule! And living in Iowa gives them the opportunity to hunt pheasants from late October to mid-January, and Joe reports that during the season they often hunt five days a week. (Maggie reports that she sometimes has to hide the shotguns!)

Dakota Rose on point

Pepper (age 4 months) with Kaleb, and Katelyn

Kaleb, with Dakota Rose and Pepper (age 8 months)