# The Dog and the Wolf

_Aesop_ · 2 min read · ages 4-10

A starving wolf meets a fat, well-kept dog, who says that if he works for the dog’s master, he will be fed every day. But a collar chains the dog up at night and has rubbed his neck bare, so the wolf says goodbye to Master Dog and goes on his way alone.

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Once there was a wolf so thin and so hungry that he was nearly starving. One day, as he slunk along the road, he met a house dog trotting by, sleek and well fed.

“Ah, Cousin,” said the dog, looking him over. “I knew it would come to this. The way you live, roaming here and there with no proper meals, will be the end of you. Why don’t you work steadily, the way I do, and have your food handed to you every day?”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all,” said the wolf, “if only I could find a place.”

“That’s easy enough to arrange,” said the dog. “Come with me to my master, and you can share my work.”

So the wolf and the dog set off toward town together. As they walked, the wolf noticed a patch on the dog’s neck where the hair was rubbed almost bare, and he asked how that had happened.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the dog. “It’s only where they put the collar on at night to keep me chained up. It rubs a little, but you soon get used to it.”

The wolf stopped in the road.

“Is that all?” he said. “Then goodbye to you, Master Dog.”

And he turned and went on his way alone.

**Moral:** Better starve free than be a fat slave.

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- Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-dog-and-the-wolf
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q53788959
- Tale type: Perry 346 (per Wikidata)
- Source: The Fables of Aesop, selected, told anew by Joseph Jacobs (1894) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28)
- Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: The Fables of Aesop, selected, told anew by Joseph Jacobs (1894) — translation: author died 564 BC (+70 passed); translator Joseph Jacobs died 1916 (+70 passed)
- License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)