Lately I have appreciated the words in Tennyson’s famous poem, Charge of the Light Brigade. With apologies to the great poet, Dan and I have felt like we’ve had cannons to the right of us, cannons to the left of us, cannons behind us. The cannons are called RSV, and having this virus is the sickest either of us has been in years.

Feeling truly awful has made me review my rather cavalier attitude towards health. I have health, I am healthy (mostly), when I am healthy again, I will fully embrace the blessing health is. Desperately looking for blessings in illness, I can say being ill has allowed me the time to read a book a day, and to witness the antics of our neighbor’s pets.

Several years ago, while attending a librarians’ conference, I won the door prize of a tape of author Gary Paulson’s memoir, Woodsong. At the time of the book, Paulsen owned and ran a dog sled team to provide sustenance for his family. The dogs were kept in separate pins and to avoid boredom, Paulsen often gave each dog a bone.

Watching the dogs one day, Paulson saw an older dog edge his bone almost within reach of a younger, rambunctious dog and then sit back and watch the desperate attempts of the younger dog to retrieve the bone. After witnessing the joke and realizing the intelligence behind it, Paulsen never ran a trap line again. Two days ago, while reading in our sunroom, I witnessed a similar event watching our neighbor’s horse play a trick on a dog.

Cheyenne, a very old Appaloosa, lives in a fenced-off field on property adjoining ours. Next to Cheyenne is another fenced off area containing three Doberman Pinschers. That day, I heard an outrageous amount of frustrated barking, and when I looked over at the field, I saw Cheyenne face to face with one of the Dobermans. The dog would bark and jump and dig, but he couldn’t get to Cheyenne and the horse knew it. He would put his nose to the fence, then turn and buck, kicking up dirt in the dog’s face. He lay down on the ground and rolled, and he would gallop away only to return a few minutes later and start the whole process again. It was hysterical!

I called my neighbor to share the story, and she said that it happens all the time. Recently, she said the dog managed to dig a hole deep enough to crawl under the fence, an instantly regretted decision as Cheyenne cornered the dog and wouldn’t let him escape. It was quite entertaining and something I might have missed had I not been recuperating on the porch.

We are both still sick, but recovering with the speed of molasses. We are not, as Tennyson’s poem says riding “Into the valley of Death.” We are resting, we are reading and we are looking forward to witnessing more animal antics. Until next week, I remain Cindy, the coughing writer.

Cindy Arp, teacher/librarian, retired from Knox County Schools. She and husband Dan live in Heiskell.