A Girl and Her Dogs

ASHTON, Idaho -- At age 5 Kylee Price knew she wanted to be a dog sled racer.

She started off using a horse halter to strap the family border collie to her Big Wheel.

She took her improvised sled team to a nearby school in her home town of Millville, Utah, and spoke the command, "Go get in your kennel."

Off she went, rolling all the way home, powered by her four-legged friend. Kylee was hooked.

Now 17 and with her own dog team, Kylee is beating racers twice her age.

At this year's American Dog Derby, Kylee and her dog team were anxious to start the race in the 1-degree cold on the Main Street of Ashton. The dogs were barking excitedly and tugging at their harnesses as they were lead to the starting area.

Her team slid over the start line and the dogs became silent as they did what they were bred to do -- run.

Kylee's strategy is simple: Practice, have good dogs and speed through the turns.

"I rarely use my brakes," Kylee said. "I think younger people take more chances."

She finished first in the 20-mile race in a field of 11 older, but not necessarily more experienced, competitors. Her total time was 1:53:24, more than a minute faster than second place.

Sled racing is an expensive hobby and most mushers, at least in part because of the cost, are 30 to 50 years old.

When she was 13, Kylee entered a junior race in Dubois, Wyo. That race was canceled and her only option was to enter the adult race, which required a team of eight dogs.

Junior racers typically use three or four dogs and Kylee had never run with eight dogs before, not even in practice. She combined her team with her brother, Kaden Price's team to make eight dogs and entered the race.

"We sent her out just hoping she'd come back," Teri Price, Kylee's mom said.

Kylee was fifth to start but was first to return.

"We thought she had a problem, and turned around and came back," Teri said. "But she came back with a big grin and saying, 'I passed everybody!'<2009>"

Kylee received her first winner'ck, for $500.

"She said, 'I'm never running a kid race again,'<2009>" Teri said.

Kylee once dreamed of racing in the 1,150-mile Iditarod but now she prefers the speed of the sprint races.

"It's kind of an adrenaline rush," Kylee said. "The short races, they run as fast as they can. You get going around the corners and it's like the sleds barely making it."

Kylee's longest race to date was 34 miles in Fairfield, Idaho. The race was exhausting for the young musher. Kylee collapsed after the finish from the fatigue of constantly pushing to speed up the dogs.

"When it comes to the race, it doesn't matter the distance," Kylee said. "You push yourself to the limit. It's a team effort. I use all my energy."

Before Kylee could realize her dream of sled racing, she had to earn the money to start her dog team.

"She knew exactly what she wanted right from the beginning," Teri said.

Kylee started saving money she received from odd jobs for neighbors, birthday cash and raising 4-H lambs. She read books on sled racing aned her mom if she could do it some day.

"I just said to her that will take a little bit of money, you just save your money and we'll talk about it later and she took that to heart," Teri said.

When she was 10, Kylee handed her mom a pile of cash and said she was ready for her dog sled team.

"As we started counting, it got up to like $1,000," Teri said. "I looked at my husband and said, 'We are in big trouble.'<2009>"

"She did that without any supervision. At a young age she had a goal, she set it," Teri said. "We could not say no."

The sled team started with two dogs from the pound. These two mutts were teamed with the family border collie that, once tied with the other dogs, was too smart to want to pull anymore. A third mutt was saved just five hours from being put to sleep and added to the team, replacing the family dog.

After a year of practice with her starter team Kylee was ready to race.

Her first junior race was at the American Dog Derby, after which Kylee decided she again needed more dogs.

The famided three more dogs bred for racing to the growing team. The dogs came from the kennel of experienced racers Rick and Kate St. Onge, neighbors in Millville. One of the dogs was the offspring of a four-time Iditarod winning lead dog trained by famous musher Susan Butcher.

"She just started kind of winning after that. She won several races over the next about two years," Teri said. "Then she wanted a little bit more dog power."

Sled dogs came and went as they were traded out with other racers. The family often received phone calls from people with dogs that needed homes and sometimes they were the ones calling to find homes for their dogs.

The family currently has six competitive dogs and two retired racers that are now house pets. Since Kylee's younger brother also races, they sometimes borrow more dogs to have enough for two teams.

Training and taking care of so many dogs requires a full time family effort.

"When Kylee got the dogs it was a life-changing family deal," Teri said. "You don't go very many places when you've got a lot of dogs to feed and a lot of poo to clean up."

Kylee's friends told her often that she was the "weirdest person" for racing sled dogs.

"They think why do you want to get up at 4 in the morning to freeze your butt off and stand on a sled?" Kylee said. "I just tell them it's what I do."

Kylee, a high school senior, is making plans for college and is considering a career as a pharmacist.

Keeping her dog racing hobby will require a difficult balance. Her parents want her to focus more on school.

College could be a major leap backward for her sled racing, but a necessary step for her future.

"Right now I'm kind of struggling with the fact that I might be done when I go to college," Kylee said. "It's kind of all or nothing; you can't do it half-way and be competitive."

Kylee still dreams of entering the Iditarod some day but for now it has to wait.

"The Iditarod would be fun to run but even if I don't get to, I'm always going to have sled dogs."