How the Dog Became the Friend of Man

The dog and the jackal were once brothers and lived together in the forest. One day they had had very poor luck at hunting; and, as night fell, they were hungry and shivering with cold.

“Jackal!” called the dog.

“What do you want?” said the jackal.

“A man has a home nearby,” said the dog.

“I know,” said the jackal.

“A fire is burning in his house,” said the dog.

“Yes.”

“Fire is nice and warm.”

“Yes.”

“There may be a bone lying near the fire.”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you go and get some fire and the bone?” “Not I,” said the jackal. “If you want these things go and get them yourself.”

“I am afraid,” said the dog and laid himself down to sleep.

As it was getting colder and colder, however, the dog’s teeth began to chatter, because the dog had less fur than the jackal and felt the cold more keenly. At last he could bear it no longer and said, “I will go and get fire; you stay, and, if I don’t come back soon, you come and call me.”

“Yes,” said the jackal.

Off went the dog to the village, but as he was getting near it he disturbed the man’s fowls with a noise. The man came out with his spear, then, to kill the intruder.

The dog pleaded for mercy. “Please don’t kill me!” said he; “I am a poor beast dying of cold and starvation; let me warm myself by your fire and then I will return to the forest.”

The Dog and the Jackal

“Let it be so,” said the man. “Warm yourself, but when you have done so, back you must go to the forest!”

The dog entered the hut and lay down near the warm fire. He picked up a bone the man had thrown away and began to gnaw it. After a time the man asked,

“Have you finished?”

The Dog gnawing a bone by the fire in the Man’s hut

“Not yet,” said the dog as he started on another bone. After a time the man asked again, “Have you finished?”

“Not yet,” replied the dog, looking for another bone.

The fire was warm and the bone tasted good. The dog felt happier than he had ever been before.

So when the man asked for the third time, “Have you finished?” the dog answered:

“Yes, but I want you to keep me with you. I will be helpful: instead of killing your fowls like brother jackal, I will help you to catch the fowls of the jungle; I will show you all the cunning ways of the wild beasts. For my service I only ask you for a place near your hearth and the bones from your meal.”

“Thus let it be,” said the man; and since then the dog has lived with man.

As the night falls now you will hear a plaintive howl in the bush, “Bo-a, bo-a” (dog, dog!). That is the jackal calling for his brother.