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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

88. THE DOG-CATCHER AND THE DOG
Perry 403 (Syntipas 21)

A man saw a dog walking by and threw him some bits of food. The dog then said to the man, 'O man, keep away from me! All your well-wishing warns me to be even more on my guard.'
This fable shows that people who offer to give someone many gifts are no doubt trying to deceive him.

Note: The man in this fable is called a 'hunter' (or perhaps a 'thief,' as one editor has conjectured); he appears to be a kind of 'dog thief' or 'dog catcher.' In another version of the story (Phaedrus 1.23), the man is a thief throwing food to a watchdog.


Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.