I figured you'd get a kick out of cholera tag, being a playwrite. 😁

I like to teach my dogs modified versions of children's games. You've got to direct the energy of working class dogs or they tend to get destructive and anxious.

Cholera tag is, obviously, a tag game. But instead of running around trying to avoid being tagged and declared "it" you're running around trying to grasp the tag. With me?

Because dogs can't speak or keep up with who's "it" a visual marker to 'grasp' is necessary. Enter the red handkerchief (usually a bandana because they're cheap and playing tag with a dog means you're going to go through a lot of them) and the reference to cholera.

In the opening scene to The Secret Garden is a complex dance passing around a scarlet handkerchief at a dinner party after little Mary, quite contrary, gets sent off to bed. The handkerchief represents cholera in the water served at the party; being sent to bed spares Mary the illness but also orphans her. That's how she ends up in dreary old England after being raised in India. That dance in the play is aptly named "The Cholera Dance".

At times I have a macabre sense of humor. It is what it is. Cholera tag is just too much fun to pass up.

Plus, it gives all the kids some playground cred because it tends to disgust their mothers. An innocent way of sticking it to the ma'am, as it were. They'll also be better (less competitive) with the dog because kids love bonding over gross stuff. My dog's well being is important to me and the when you play kid's games by dog rules the number 1 rule is the dog wins. Always. Every game. The sad fact is, some people, children too, can't handle that. They'll try to punch or kick the dog for winning the "it".

My last dog, Coon Tut, absolutely LOVED cholera tag. We were working on a version we named cholera freeze when he died. Obviously, a version of freeze tag, hound rules. He was getting pretty good. He was a good boy.

When you grow up on the boonies you learn to entertain yourself.