The Dog Loses His Meat to His Reflection

The Dog Loses His Meat to His Reflection is a brief fable in which a Dog, carrying a piece of flesh across a bridge, mistakes his reflection in the stream for another Dog with a larger piece of meat. He abandons what he has to pursue the apparent double and ends with nothing. The single reversal turns a concrete loss into a moral lesson about grasping after an illusory advantage.

The Encounter at the Bridge

A Dog crosses a bridge over a stream with a piece of flesh in his mouth. In the water he sees his own shadow, but takes it for another Dog carrying a piece of meat twice the size of his own. The crossing brings together the Dog’s real possession and its deceptive image: the larger prize exists only as a reflection.

The Choice and Its Consequence

The Dog immediately lets go of his food and attacks the apparent rival, hoping to take the larger piece. His action costs him both prizes. The meat he sees in the water is only a shadow, while the stream sweeps away the flesh he had actually held. The fable’s reversal is direct: in trying to increase his portion, the Dog loses the one thing he possessed.

Moral and Fable Form

The episode makes its lesson through a single action and its immediate consequence rather than through a separate explanation. The Dog’s misreading prompts the choice; the choice produces the loss. In the preface’s account of fable-making, this unity of action and plainly connected moral is a central strength of the form: instruction is carried by the narrative itself, with fictitious animal characters representing human motives and conduct.

The story also exemplifies the collection’s caution that not every fable achieves the same degree of design or connection between narrative and moral. Here, however, the image of the Dog reaching for a reflected double gives the lesson a precise shape: an imagined gain can draw attention away from a real possession, and the pursuit of more can leave the pursuer with less.