The team hit a blizzard over Copenhagen. The wind kept blowing a fringe of fur across Jared's eyes, obscuring what his vision almost as much as the blinding snow.
As the sleigh raced over the city, Jared suggested to Blitzen, who seemed to be the alpha deer, a landing might be in order.
"Landing!" Blitzen harrumphed. "We are not quitters on this team. We have a schedule to..."
The bossy reindeer never finished his statement. The sleigh clipped a snow-draped cathedral spire, sending the less than aerodynamically-designed sleigh into a spin.
Jared barked and tried not to get tossed from the sleigh as the reindeer struggled to regain momentum. As the conveyance made a rapid descent, Blitzen ordered a course adjustment that gave the sleigh just enough tilt to dump one rather shocked sheepdog into the harbour.
Jared dog paddled toward shore, barking for Blitzen to turn the team back and pick him up.
Predictably, as they drove out of sight, Blitzen retorted they had a schedule to keep. "Maybe we will swing by on the homeward run," Blitzen communicated in Danish. "Farvel, hund, held og lykke."
Jared managed to swim to a dock and pull himself from the water. As the water in his fur turned to miniature icicles, he shivered in the cold. He still couldn't get the musky scent of reindeer out of his nostrils. He really hated reindeer.
What the hell should he do now, he wondered? He's a dog, suddenly transported thousands of miles from home by the reindeer of Saint Nicholas, and dumped into a Christmas Eve snowstorm in Denmark.
His thoughts thus engaged, he was blindsided when he turned a corner and found himself in the path of an oncoming snow-plow.