Horton

Horton is outnumbered. He is one of two males in a team of females. To his credit, though, it doesn't seem to bother him. He is a pretty focused and very docile dog. In fact, I was shown how docile he is a few weeks ago. I had him beside another male in my team and we had a tangle. The tangle was with Horton and his partner, Dart, the other male. The gangline had wrapped around Dart's leg and his neckline was caught on the back of Hortons harness which had pulled up on Horton so that he and Dart were nose to nose. The majority of my experience with un-neutered male dogs comes from Hudson and his brother, who would fight in a situation like this. I was trying to get the two dogs untangled as fast as I could because I was sure that they were going to fight: they were nose to nose, tangled and directly behind a female in heat. To make matters worse, the six dogs in front of them were lunging in their harnesses trying to get the sled moving. Each time they lunged, the gangline around Darts leg would tighten and he would growl. Horton just kept turning away until I had finally sorted them out. Good boy!

To say that Horton is docile may imply that he isn't a hard worker, but more often than not it is Horton that pulls us to the top of a hill. He's a pretty solid dog and although he, too, is shy, he is coming out of it. He is definitely part of the first string.