Introduction Page

Introduction:

Hello! Welcome to my Storybook Anthology Introduction page. Dogs are such an easy topic to discuss because humans naturally love animals. The average household is likely to have a dog. Heck, growing up, there were at least three dogs in my household at any given point. Of course I am a dog lover myself. My own pup is a pit/lab mix named Verona. This is where my fascination for this topic comes from, honestly. I was feeling uninspired about what to write about, and like usual, I turned to her for inspiration. This is such an interesting topic to write about. It is so simple, yet so captivating because there is seldom a person that I meet that does not like dogs. I have done much research on this topic and have decided that I am going to focus specifically on how dogs are depicted in Aesop's fables because of how plentiful they are in the stories. What does it say about us as a society with how much we incorporate dogs into our everyday life? Why has the love of dogs transcended time the way it has? The criterion that I am focusing on is simply that there is a dog in the story, obviously. However, I want to focus on the stories where the dogs are in conjunction with other animals and humans. I want to showcase the dog's complementary nature.

Aesop's Fables: The Farmer and His Dogs:

One cold winter a farmer contemplates morality through survival. He knows what he needs to do in order to survive. The Farmer's actions display how humans hold dogs in a higher morality, as compared to other animals.

Aesop's Fables: The Dog and the Wolf:

This story is my personal favorite of Aesop's fables that include dogs. I really enjoy this story because the protagonist is a clever pup who avoids death by outsmarting a brutish wolf.

Aesop's Fables: The Hare and the Hound:

The story about The Hare and the Hound is another top contender for me simply because of the last line, as it reads "You forget," replied the Hound, "that it is one thing to be running for your dinner, and another for your life" (Aesop). This really resonated with me, and was quite striking the more I thought about it.

These are examples of three stories from Aesop that I found that contain dog elements to the story line. Of course, there are a couple dozed stories by Aesop that have dogs written in them. These are simply a few of my favorites. I will be creating an anthology discussing Aesop's fables. Each story will stand on its own as an individual, but they will all be linked together through dogs, of course.