Max and Molly were royal pups and were envied by all the dogs in the kingdom. Life in the palace was luxurious, and they were given everything they could ever dream of. They had so many amazing toys and were constantly being fed treats and having their bellies scratched.

Though the pair had everything they could dream of, they often got bored and wandered through the palace grounds during the nighttime, which they knew they were not supposed to do. One night, while they were wandering, they noticed that the king had forgotten to put away the harnesses with the horses when he parked his chariot. The pups saw the harnesses and agreed that they would make excellent toys. The dogs grabbed the fancy leather harnesses and play tug-of-war with them all night. They chewed them up and chased each other around the yard having the time of their lives.

They soon noticed that the sun was starting to come up and quickly ran back to the kings' chambers and pretended to be sleeping the whole night.

When the king awoke and found that some dogs had destroyed his expensive leather harness he gathered his men and demanded to know who was responsible.

"Since no dog will step forward, I am banning all dogs from the kingdom!"

The king sent out a letter to all families, letting them know that all dogs must leave the city, effective tomorrow morning. All dogs except for his own royal dogs, of course.

There were many dogs who lived in the kingdom and they were all very upset by this news. If they were to leave the city, where would they go? How could they leave behind their families and move away? The dogs of the city rallied and decided to vote on a leader.

"We need someone strong" shouted Pip!

"We need someone smart" suggested Bailey.

"We need someone who The King will take seriously" Verona pointed out.

"I think we should pick Daisy" shouted Lily, Daisy's sister.

Daisy was the perfect pup for the job! She was a very outspoken dog who was not afraid to stand up for herself. Daisy, with the help of the other dogs in town, decided that she would go to the castle and confront the king, asking him about his decision to ban dogs from the kingdom.

She approached the castle gates, where there were guards keeping a very close watch on the outside. They demanded to know why Daisy was at the castle and she worked very hard to convince them to let her in.

She approached the king's throne, and asked him why dogs were banned from the kingdom. He explained what had happened with his harnesses and told Daisy that dogs were a nuisance to his kingdom.

"Will all dogs be banned from the kingdom" Daisy asked?

"All except my beloved Dobermans," the king replied.

This is so unfair! Daisy thought, there was no way for any of the dogs from the city to enter onto palace grounds! It must have been Max and Molly who destroyed the king's possessions, but how can I prove it? She thought. Then she realized, if it were them who ate the harnesses, they would still be in their systems, so she asked the king to have his dogs eat some grass, knowing that it would make them sick.

The king brought forth his dogs and fed them grass. Soon, they were feeling ill and each vomited pieces of leather. The king could not believe it, his own dogs had destroyed his property.

Feeling guilty about his actions against the city dogs, he immediately recounted his order to ban all dogs from the kingdom. He also set forth a yearly celebration, to reward the cities dogs for being "The Goodest," which they still celebrate to this day!

Authors Note:

This is our retelling of the "The Guilty Dogs," found in the book Twenty Jataka Tales. My niece, Maddy, particularly liked this story because she thinks it teaches a nice lesson, so we decided to write about this one for today. We agreed that the characters needed to be given names, to make it more personal. I decided to rewrite the story- letting her name the characters and decide theri specific personality traits (I loved that she made the hero a female). I tried to write it in such a way that it could easily be converted to a children's book with illustrations on each page. If I am being completely honest, I let my niece take most of the creative control over this story, typing what she tells me to (though there were some ideas I just had to say no to). I have basically started my entire portfolio over at this point, so I will be adding stories to it much more frequently. I love receiving feedback so thank you in advance for your comments! :)