Waking in the morning, Ice took a good twenty minutes to actually sit up in bed. It took another ten minutes for him to actually get out. His dogs were rather helpful at getting him out. They tugged at the sheets, his tail, and at his harness. Of course, Ice wasn't wearing the harness, but they were pulling it around the room, making a lot of noise with it. As soon as Max started to chew on the harness, he was out of bed, pulling the harness from his teeth. Lucky this morning, he was able to pull the harness away without any tears.
Now he started to slide the harness on, taking as much time as he wanted. Checking the clock, he had about another half hour before he needed to pick up the mail to deliver. He didn't care for the job, but it made money and he could still work alongside his dogs. As soon as he finished getting dressed, he walked into the kitchen to prepare his food and the dogs'. For a second he almost gave Medium his food, and almost ate Medium's. It wasn't until he didn't hate a spoon that he realized his mistake, and was able to switch the meals before either had a bite.
Once they had all finished eating, Ice worked on getting the dogs in the sled. Smoothie, Bowtie, Apples, and Dancer were all good and stayed put as usual. Phillip decided to sleep under a bush, Blitz wanted to play tug-a-war over a sock with Max, Medium was wanting to go back inside, and Sunny and Levi were wrestling. Ice tried to get Phillip out, while also trying to call Sunny and Levi to get in line. Finally, he snapped at the dogs. "GET IN LINE. NOW." They all looked at him, and slowly fell in line. With a relived sigh, he went to putting the harnesses on each dog. Bowtie and Apples were the lead dogs, Phillip and Blitz were the swing. Dancer, Max, Smoothie, and Medium were the team dogs, while Levi and Sunny brought up the back as the wheel dogs.
Finally, he was able to make his dogs move out. They had been doing this long enough that Ice didn't have to really command them, though sometimes he did give out the occasional "haw" and "gee". Pulling into the mail station, Ice commanded the dogs to all stop, and a lot of them laid down. That was always the good thing - once they were all hooked up to the sled, they were pretty good at listening. The mail pony brought out boxes of letters, already organized. That always made him happy, because to organize while driving a sled would be crazy. The mail pony helped load up the sled, and when everything was secure, Ice shouted out, "Hike!".
That was an average morning for the sledder.
