Deer- Post Processing help

[pulse]

Heres an image i just took a few days ago
Now i really like the photo for some reason, but i cant seem to edit it into anything i like.
As soon as i try and mess with brightness and contrast the snow just gets blown out really easy.
I was wondering if you people had any ideas or tips that i could use on editing this photo.
Thanks,

 

[rdzmzda]

can you zoom in on the deer a bit...seems to far off

 

[ypperin]

Okay I was playing around with it in Lightroom (great little program) and was able to play without blowing out the snow....

Changes I made were:
EV+48
Recovery 75
Fill 31
Blacks 19
Contrast +20
Clarity 55

I also cropped out the blurry foreground, would have cropped out more but the pic is quite small and you wouldn't be able to see much of anything. Not saying that it's better, but was my attempt....

 

[cosmoepic]

ive been messing with this but is it me or is the deer just to blended in with everything else? is there a color version of this?