The Three Dogs
A Short Tale with a Happy Ending
by Tiger Tom
Three dogs lived in a modest one-room doghouse behind the Big House. One day when the Powers That Be brought the dogs their food, Father Dog, a big, ugly palooka who thought he knew everything, said with pompous authority: "This food is too fresh. Let's go out and do some dog stuff, then we'll come back and fight over the food later."
So they went into the yard and smelled each other, dug some random and meaningless holes, turned around three times and lay down, and took a four-minute nap.They scratched, peed repeatedly, rolled on their backs, turned around three times and lay down again, did much random and pointless barking, then turned around three times and lay down and scratched some more. After licking his balls for some time, Father Dog decided it was time to eat.
When he got to the food bowl, however, he saw right away that some of the food was gone. In fact, a small generic animal was helping himself to it. Father Dog was so enraged that he did not wait for the usual "someone's been eating my food" repartee but rather charged full speed, growling, snarling, and slobbering, in pursuit of the tiny thief. Just as Father Dog attained full speed and was closing in for the kill, the small animal slipped easily through the cyclone fence and was gone.
Father Dog was going much too fast to stop. Although he locked his brakes and clawed at the ground, he crashed hard into the fence and burst immediately into flames. Soon there was nothing left but a bad smell and a big pile of smoking flesh.
The Moral: Being big and stupid is an advantage if you are a football player, but not if you are a dog.
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