See the 1 answer word debuted by Bruce Greig.
A | B | B | E | S | O | R | E | B | A | L | D | |||
L | A | R | G | O | P | I | T | R | O | D | E | O | ||
F | R | O | G | M | A | R | C | H | O | S | M | I | C | |
A | R | K | A | B | A | C | I | P | O | I | S | E | ||
L | I | E | S | C | H | I | C | K | E | N | R | U | N | |
F | O | R | T | E | S | A | S | S | E | R | T | |||
A | S | S | A | Y | M | A | I | M | D | E | S | |||
B | E | A | R | C | R | A | W | L | ||||||
A | S | P | C | I | T | E | B | O | A | R | S | |||
T | O | U | S | L | E | E | A | G | L | E | T | |||
T | U | R | K | E | Y | T | R | O | T | E | L | L | O | |
A | T | R | I | A | O | O | Z | E | D | S | I | P | ||
C | H | I | E | F | G | O | O | S | E | S | T | E | P | |
H | E | N | R | Y | A | N | N | C | R | A | V | E | ||
E | R | G | S | S | E | E | O | A | R | E | D |
Finally! After five (or six?) submissions, I got Will's blessing. After just one, relatively straightforward, set of edits, it was ready to go.
The seed of this puzzle came from "turkey trot", as I was considering participating in the annual Detroit Thanksgiving 5k race by that name. I didn't end up running, but I did get a good puzzle idea out of it! Soon I was wracking my brain for similar "animal walk" phrases. "Bear crawl" and "frog march" all came pretty quickly, plus they were a crossword-friendly 9 letters to boot!
I knew I needed at least one more, or a revealer of some sort to put the puzzle into submission realm. I resorted to my old friend Google to search for animal phrases. "Goose step", also at 9 letters worked well, but frankly "Chicken Run" was my least favorite as it did not seem as "tight" as the others since it was not something "doable" by a human — like the others.
For my debut I was excited that Will used most of my fill, though probably less than half my clues. His cluing was certainly "fresher" than mine. I mean, "Raiders of the Lost __" ? That was just plain lazy. I love his replacement! After 35+ years of solving NYT puzzles, I am positively thrilled to finally join the club of constructors. One down, hopefully many more to go!