Originally published on April 26, 2018.

Heide Morgan, Gilpin County.

Maggie has shown a keen interest in everything her mom Heide Morgan does, but she is especially interested in their sled dogs. She loves the dogs, and wanted to be near them as soon as she could move around. She started going with on training runs in her bike cart when she was a little over a year old and loved it. Anytime her mom would get harnesses out, Maggie would go looking for her helmet and beg to go along. It wasn’t long before she started picking up the commands and shouting them out anytime she heard Heide call them.

Maggie quickly developed a fondness for Heide’s “retired” white dog Xia. So it was decided Xia would be Maggie’s dog. Then last summer, New Hope Seppalas had a litter of sled dog pups. Maggie was in the middle of that as much as her mom would allow. Of course she fell for the white puppies and one wasn’t claimed, so Maggie got her second sled dog, Whiskey. They have developed a special bond. Whiskey absolutely adores Maggie and is the first to greet her in the dog yard.

So now Maggie has her own team. Heide made sure to train Whiskey and Xia together so they knew how to run together for Maggie. Maggie went on all their training runs and practiced the commands. So, when one of CMM’s winter dog sled races happened to fall on her birthday, Heide and Pete (Maggie’s father) decided it was time to build Maggie her own sled equipment (harnesses and gang lines) and her very own sled. Heide worked hard to learn how to make harnesses and made Maggie her first set of hot pink and black X-back harnesses for Whiskey and Xia, she also pulled out the fidding kit and whipped up a black and pink gang line. Then came the hard part, the sled.

Heide and Pete went out to the garage to see what they could come up with. They stumbled upon an old rocking chair and some ski’s and decided to make it work. A full day of disassembling and reassembling the chair, and Maggie’s rocker sled was created. After a couple hours of decorating with duct tape, it was complete and ready to glide.

The next day everyone packed into the Subaru and drove to Leadville.

It was cold in Leadville at the end of February, perfect for the dogs but hard for an almost two year old. Maggie was a trooper and wanted to get out on her sled. So when it was finally her turn to go, she was beyond excited. Mom and the dogs couldn’t go fast enough. The first day went really smooth and Maggie had a blast, it was hard to get her back off the sled. The second day (her birthday) her boots got slippery and she slipped off her sled a couple times, but she would get right back up and climb back on her sled and tell her dogs to “GO GO GO”. Even her mom was impressed at how determined she was. Once again it was hard to get her off the sled when they returned to the car. She loved it and her dogs worked hard for her. So did mom, and they finished 3rd in her first ever dog sled race.

Sadly, there hasn’t been enough snow at home to play with the sled more, but Maggie still goes out on runs with mom in her bike cart. She always gets excited when the harnesses come out. She also loves getting to feed her two dogs, and has even started learning how to brush them. Maggie is definitely ready for next winter to get out on her sled and “GO GO GO” with her dogs.