Once upon a time, there was a little village with a problem: they had an angry dog prowling around the outskirts of the town, growling and barking at anybody that it would find.

This lasted for many days. The villagers were terrified, and were careful to always have something with them to protect themselves if they should ever encounter the dog, whether a gun, a pitchfork, or even simply a rock. Whenever they would see the dog, they waved their weapons in the air and yelled at it to go away.

One day, a little boy saw the dog far off in the distance, slinking around the outskirts of the town. It looked gaunt and weak. The boy was moved with compassion and took pity on the dog. He dashed back to his home, grabbed a bowl, and filled it with several scraps of food.

He then headed back to search for the dog. When he found the dog, he called out to it, “Good morning, dog! I brought a gift for you!” And he lifted the bowl up for the dog to see.

As the dog approached, it smiled. And the boy smiled. He then asked the dog, “You don’t seem so bad. What makes you so angry?”

The dog sighed. “The people of this town are all so frightened of me that nobody will feed me or play with me. It makes me so sad, so lonely — and very angry!”

And with that, the dog snarled and lunged at the boy. The terrified boy shrieked and ran far away from the dog, still clutching the bowl of food between his trembling fingers.

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