The Alaskan sled dogs were not happy about the PCS to Hawaii.

“My Siberian huskies were about to have a mutiny on me,” says retired Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Deb Cawthorn.

But before they left, Cawthorn, an avid fan of long-distance dog-sled races such as the 1,000-mile Iditarod and Yukon Quest, had one more thing she wanted to try: mushing.

“I decided that I [was] not going to leave Alaska without doing the real deal,” she says. “So I did a lot of research and found a place I was really interested in.”

Cawthorn, 47, ended up at Bush Alaska Expeditions, based in the tiny village of Eagle, Alaska, 200 miles east of Fairbanks. She was hooked and returned twice more, mushing hundreds of miles each trip. After the third expedition, the husband and wife team who operate Bush Alaska Expeditions asked her to sign on as a guide.

“They knew I was retiring from the military, and they offered me a job as a guide. And I said, 'Are you kidding me? You're going to pay me to do this!?' ”

Cawthorn and her husband, Mark, a retired Coast Guard captain, now live in Virginia, where Cawthorn - a lifelong runner - trains for ultramarathons, a sport she took up while in Hawaii.

While she enjoys ultramarathon races, she says she doesn't have as much of an interest in competing in sled dog racing, and instead volunteers at the Yukon Quest Eagle Check Point each year.

In January, Cawthorn will head back to remote Eagle for her fourth season as a guide, leading clients on multi-day expeditions where temperatures can plummet to as low as -60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Until then, she and her dogs will spend as much time as possible running and training in and around Virginia. In September, Cawthorn is headed to the Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival 100-miler.

“As soon as I run my race - I always do a fall 100 the last few years - and recover, then it's all about the dogs,” she says. “That is my favorite pastime - running with my dogs - if I'm not dog mushing.”