hi shackleton

i started with the usual hunting dogs(retrivers etc) and still like them for some work, but it just got to easy training them. i still train other peoples dogs when time permits but wanted something this time with a bit more bite and brains, i claim that i can make any dog fetch in a hunting situation by now so i wanted to raise the bar some.

i was slegdeing with a friend in norway when he got the call, that a turist had run into a moose and could he please go kill it(besides him catering to turists with dogslegdeing tours, he was also the sweissdog handler in that region) so he asked if i would join him for a little hunting in the morning(it was almost nightfall)stupid question.
i got picked up the next morning at my hut and we vent driving for a ½ hour before we arrived at the place where the car crash occured.
we unloaded 3 dogs(alaskan malamutes) and he gave me a belt, a 5 meter line and a dog.
he then put his lead dog on the trail and it went silent away on the track, he then asked me if i was cool with the concept of one dog pulling me on the skies. i nodded and was thankfull that he couldent see my face looking bewilderd back at him in the darkness.

with a HEP, off we went into the dark forest, anybody having expirence with a skilift would know this feeling where you relax and let the dog pull you along with very little effort, the lead dogs traks was getting vicible in the snow, as first light dawned.
we followed the tracks of both dog and moose in the silent forest, wich is one of the most magical moments i have ever expirenced.
There was very few blood drops in the track, just enough so we knew that we were on the right animal. After 3-4 miles we heard the dog make sounds, a barking haul of sorts, a short distance from us in the forest.
Bjoern offered me the rifle for the coup de grace, but i declined as i dident know anything about the weapon in question. it was a remington rolling block in 50-70.
we snuck closer to the animal as the dog was working it by keeping up the barking and hauling, working around it, so the brize couldent alarm it, we came in at about 50 meters and saw a pinn moose with a broken rear leg standing in some small birch.
Bjoern checked where his dog were and then took a quick shot at the moose, KABOOOOM and a large smoke cloud later, i saw the moose bowl over in a way, i never saw them do it, when i shot them with my .30 class guns.
With the animal down i thought that we were in for the work part and then some, but to my supprice we just took the moose out, and tied the legs to the body. bjoern then proceded to fasten the lines from the 3 dogs to the head of the moose.
JEM he ordered and the dogs pulled the moose nice and easy through the snow with us coming up from the rear.
after 30 minutes we had a stop, made a fire and had lunch and took a short nap while the dogs were resting.
after rest and lunch it was getting cold and late, so we set a faster pace making it back to the car in an hour and a half or something like that.
the moose whent in the back of the pickup and we went home to a couppel of hours of skinning and butchering, before we could get fed ourselves.

this was my first expirence with malamutes and hunting with large calibers, after this i was hooked and still am, allthough this will be my first malamute, i know which way to go with them.

peter