The Most Dangerous Game
Inside “Distance Dogging,” the new sport that’s sticking its snout up southwest Montana.
The next time you’re grinding your way up Mount Blackmore and get the feeling there’s a predator on your tail, you may find that bears and mountain lions are the least of your concerns. Instead, you may be asking, “Who let the dogs out?” At least that’s the hope of one trio of Montanans. They’re the brains behind Distance Dogging, a new sport that combines two iconic mountain activities: trail running and hunting with hounds. Says co-founder Chase N. Yewmins, “Not only will it be the thrill of your life, but it’s a family activity, too. It brings people together like nothin’ else can.”
This unlikely story started when tech billionaire Kane S. Leupis bought world-class protection dog Medusa to maul intruders on his Yellowstone Club estate. Kane made his fortune when Google bought his startup, Squattr, an app for rating and ranking National Park and Forest Service privies across the nation. Kane took a keen interest in Medusa’s ongoing training and was soon combining his new passion for dog handling with his longtime love of long-distance trail running.
“It was my wife, Kay Nyne, who had the brilliant idea for sharpening Medusa’s attack command by having her try to catch me during one of my training sessions,” explains Kane. To make it realistic, Kane fooled Medusa by dressing in a local resort worker’s clothing. “The guy sleeps in his car, like many of the help,” Kane explains. “So he hadn’t showered in a while. It covered my scent nicely.”
Trained to attack the lower-middle class, Medusa gave the chase her all. “I found it exhilarating,” Kane says. “I’d recently run the Crazy Mountain 100, which was fine, but fleeing for my life from the finely-honed weapon that is a well-trained German shepherd? That’ll make any ultra-marathon—no matter how prestigious—feel like a stroll down the Gallagator.”
Kane wasn’t the only one transformed by the primal purity of the experience. “I took one look at Kay—face flushed, breathing ragged, eyes glinting—and instantly saw that she was intoxicated by the hunt, too,” says Kane.
Petite, wiry, and with a smile that makes onlookers wilt, Kay isn’t just a billionaire trophy wife, she’s the sole heiress to the Amway fortune and an accomplished distance runner herself. She’s also a devout practitioner of goat yoga, which she claims will always be her first love. “No race I’ve run before—not the Ridge, not the Rut—has ever matched the flood of endorphins and the incredible high I got from chasing down my husband with a bloodthirsty canine,” says Kay.
The couple was hooked, dedicating every weekend to planning and executing elaborate pursuits across the mountains of southwest Montana. They’ve described those early days as a magical time. Sadly, Medusa ultimately proved too aggressive when bringing the quarry to bay. “That bitch had a hard time turning it off when she caught up with me,” says Kane. “It was getting to where the snatch was never-ending. Medusa finally tore me up so badly that I needed a dozen stitches. Kay told me to man up, that I was acting like a peasant bitch, but the wounds made me dizzy, and I missed a text from my broker with some insider information. I lost a pint of blood and 20 million dollars—not to mention the $500k we donated to a Senate campaign to get that tip. That’s when I suggested we throw in the towel. We almost put Medusa down, but our annoyingly altruistic firstborn intervened—he’s got a soft spot for animals. Guess we should’ve put him down.”
In typical Montana fashion, just when the couple was ready to quit, a night at the bar turned everything around. Explains Kay, “We were at our favorite saloon, the Stacey’s replica at the Crazy Mountain Ranch, and sitting right next to us, knocking back double-shots of Jack Daniels, was the answer we were looking for.”
Enter Chase, a fifth-generation Montanan and third-generation houndsman. Chase runs Scaredy Cat Outfitters, a mountain-lion-hunting operation that specializes in treeing collared cougars for indiscriminate political elites. A conversation ensued, many more shots were quaffed, and a plan was hatched. By breeding the bitch Medusa with Chase’s prize stud Walker hound, the three cynophilists would give birth to a new sport: Distance Dogging.
“I thought they were plum crazy,” says Chase. “Hell, I still think they’re crazy. But the money they offered was silly, and frankly I kinda wanted to see what happened. I’m as surprised as anybody that it worked out.”
What doesn’t surprise anyone, it seems, is how fun it is to chase people with hounds. For Chase and Kay especially, working together as breeder and handler showed what man, woman, and dog can accomplish in the pursuit of man-prey. “It ain’t for ninnies,” admits Chase with a chuckle. “But it sure is addictive. I thought a 150-pound screamin’ tomcat in a tree was intense, but I promise you, once you start huntin’ humans, no kitty, however large, will satisfy.”
Now, after an intense multi-year program of breeding and training, the threesome has what many consider to be the finest pack of human-hunting hounds in North America.
If you know Kane and Kay, it comes as no surprise that their ambitions to grow the sport are driven by an intensity akin to madness. Working with close contacts in Washington DC, the couple is lobbying to get approval to run commercial “Houndurance” hunts on Forest Service land, starting next year.
And while there’s no doubt that high-dollar hunts for tourists will be a big part of Distance Dogging’s future, the sport’s founders are intent on growing the lifestyle organically and making sure that all communities are represented in the canine-human pursuit sports.
“Distance Dogging is something anyone can do,” says Kay. “As long as you’re supremely fit, have a ton of free time, and can find a sadomasochistic partner, you can Distance Dog. We really want to tap into the grassroots of this thing and make it available to all Montanans.”
Kane and Kay were pretty-tight lipped about the specifics of how they plan to bring Distance Dogging to the people, but they did say that Strava users may soon notice a new record category: FCT, or Fastest Chased Time. They added that runners should “expect Doggers to start showing up at some of the West’s cornerstone events.” This jives with a rumor that swept through the ultra-running community earlier this year: the trio plans to enter the 2026 Rut and turn their pack of man-hunting hounds loose on the entire field of runners midway through.
When asked about this scuttlebutt, Chase smiles and answers with a question of his own: “I ain’t sayin’ yes and I ain’t sayin’ no. But shit, bunch o’ ferocious canines chasin’ fancy-pants runners all over Lone Mountain? You tellin’ me that wouldn’t be somethin’ to see?”
To learn more, visit distancedogging.com.
