Woodsong

What is the summary for Chapter 3 of Woodsong by Gary Paulsen?

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In times of boredom while pulling the dogs, Paulsen would often allow the dogs space to amuse themselves. He notes, however, that in cases of extreme cold, say at forty below zero Fahrenheit, the precautious you must take become severe and nature changes. Steel will become brittle and break and simple breaths of air threaten to burst the blood vessels in your throat. Well, to pass the time, Paulsen would often let his dogs play with meat bones. One of his dogs, Columbia, usually refused to engage in the "Bone Wars" with other dogs, instead burying her bones. That is, until one day when she moved a bone very, very close to a less intelligent dog, Olaf, and watched him struggle to get the bone which was not quite within his reach.

After that, Paulsen felt he could not trap or kill any longer. It was that fast. If Columbia could do that, then most animals probably could, which means that they exhibited sufficient intelligence to warrant not being killed. So instead of trapping, Paulsen simply took the dogs around the woods, trying to learn from them. This led to his third lesson from the woods. One day while running the team, he fell off the sled and was pierced in the knee by a piece of wood. The dogs kept running and Paulsen figured he was finished. But the dog team came back, led by Obeah, and Duberry licked the wound on his leg as she would have a puppy. He untangled the sled and led them home. He knew then that the dogs could teach him.

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