"First Snow"
12/05

The snow was falling and we could not wait to train dogs. Ali, Scott and I went to Hill to run 12 miles. We knew that we would not be able to set a hook, but we were like kids on Christmas morning.  

Ali ran 3 dogs: Pando, Kyia & Turbo. Scott ran: Tymber, Anika, Liv, Zak, Tristan & Ben. I ran: Kasper, Gynger, Hailee, Ember, Boo & Orion.

Everything was going well until about the 3 mile marker on the way back. My team picked up the pace. We were flying way faster than when we took off. I thought it was weird, but we went like this for a while. Then I had a feeling that there were a couple of large animals up ahead. I turned on my headlamp, saw nothing, and turned it back off. We kept flying, and I could not shake the feeling of 2 large animals. I turned my light back on. Up ahead I could see 2 very large horses. Crap! One went off the side of the trail and the other stood on the trail. I said "Gynger on by" several times. When we came up alongside the horse it went behind me and into the woods. I think we would have been fine if it stayed put but this was too much for prey driven Hailee, Boo & Orion. They pulled my team into the woods.  I was trying to set my hook. I knew Scott was not that far behind me, so I stayed on my brake as best as I could. The horse took off down a trail. Scott came with his team. I yelled "horses" and he tied off to a tree and turned me around. 

Boo sulked like a baby for a half mile. I would be going along and he would drop onto the ground like he was dead. Scott would stop behind me and I would go again. This continued on until Scott said "what the heck are you doing?" and I said "It is not me! Apparently one of the horses was in season and Boo thought he was going to get laid!" as you can imagine it was in a loud annoyed tone. Boo stopped being a jerk and we finally got back to the truck.

We then took out 8 remaining dogs with the 3 of us. It was late and poor Ali was so cold and tired by the time we finished.

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