The Dog Who Went Abroad

A long famine settled on a certain town. Grain ran short, kitchens went cold, and one by one the dogs of the place were driven from the doorsteps where they had always slept. Among them was a dog called Spot. Hunger squeezed his throat until he could think of nothing else, and at last he set off for a country far away, where he hoped food would be easier to find.

In a city of that distant land he discovered a house where food was left within reach. The pots were uncovered and scraps lay about, so Spot slipped in every day and ate as much as he liked from a long and varied menu. For a dog who had been starving, it seemed like good fortune.

The trouble began each time he stepped back into the street. The dogs of that city were proud of their own lanes and hated a stranger. They rushed at him from every side and bit him all over, until he limped away bleeding.

After this had happened often enough, Spot sat down and thought it through. “At home there is famine,” he said to himself, “but at least I live there in peace, and no one picks a fight with me. I would rather be hungry among my own people than full and torn to pieces here.” So he turned around and went back to his own town.

His relatives crowded around him as if he had come home from a grand journey. “Tell us everything,” they begged. “What is that country like? How do the people behave? What do they eat?”

Spot answered honestly. The food over there, he told them, was excellent and came in great variety, and food was easy to find. “But,” he added, “my own kind in that foreign street have no manners at all.”

Where this story comes from

In Arthur W. Ryder’s 1925 English translation of the Panchatantra, this short tale closes Book IV, “Loss of Gains.” It is told inside the frame story of the monkey and the crocodile: the monkey uses it to show that being away from home is not always the comfort it looks like.

Read the original: Arthur W. Ryder, The Panchatantra (1925), Internet Archive

Best for ages 6–8 — a short, clear animal tale about home, belonging and the difference between food security and personal safety.

A closer reading

Spot does not leave for luxury: famine drives him out. Nor does he return because he cannot explain his feelings. He makes a clear comparison between abundant food and repeated attacks. A place can meet one need while making another dangerously insecure.

The closing irony is that the people indirectly feed him while animals of his own species hurt him. Belonging is therefore not guaranteed by likeness. The behavior of these particular dogs should not become a claim that newcomers are unwelcome everywhere or that people must remain where they were born.

Try this with the story

Make a two-column travel report for Spot’s home and the new city. Include both food and safety, using only details from the story. Then add one change the city dogs could make that would alter his decision.

Talk about it

• What forces Spot to leave home?
• Why is plentiful food insufficient to make the city safe for him?
• What could the resident dogs change to welcome a newcomer?

Related stories

• The Monkey and the Crocodile — the frame story in which this tale is told
• The Story of the Blue Jackal — another Panchatantra animal who learns where he belongs
• The Jackal and the Drum — a hungry jackal’s search for food