Storytelling Week 11: Not Your Typical Homecoming

(illustration from Baby's Book of Fable's)

One day a man showed up to his house and a dog was going through his trash outside. The dog stopped and looked up when he saw the man standing there. The dog started growling and the man walked by the animal carefully to get in his house. 

The man thinking the dog is hungry going through the trash, fixes him some food. The man starts bringing the food outside and the dog sees him. The man and dog stare at each other, but the man keeps stepping forward. The dog starts barking at him. The man leaves the bowl of food and goes inside. 

The man watches from the inside and watches the dog eat. He wonders what someone must have done to him to make the dog react to people that way. The man decided for safety he should stay inside a while. 

The man is sipping coffee later and he hears the dog barking again. He walks to the door to see what the commotion is. A man is standing out there trying to get control of the dog. The dog evades him as the stranger starts yelling mean thing to the dog. Finally, the man from inside goes on his lawn and asks the stranger what he's doing. The stranger tells the man to mind his own business. 

The man looks at the stranger and sees him holding a stick. He starts poking at the dog to get him to move. The dog starts barking again. The man finally asks the stranger to leave. The stranger tells him to get lost. The stranger get more aggressive and hits the dog. The man runs at him and tackles him to the ground. 

They roll on the ground left and right. The dog continues to bark. People around the neighborhood hear the noises and start coming to the man's front lawn where the fight is happening. Men start pulling the stranger off the man. They create a barrier between the dig and the man. 

The man turns around and finds the dog standing very close to him. The dog looks at him with a snarl. A moment of silence passes as they both look at each other. The dog jumps and starts licking the man all over his face. The man takes the dog inside. 

Author's Note: In The Faithful House-Dog, I chose to change it with use of third person narration because it gave me multiple options. I could get into conversation if I wanted, or I could picture it like a movie and have just narration with no dialogue. The goal was to make a feel good ending for dog lovers. 

This was a fable, so the story was not too long. All that happened in the original story, is that a dog kept an intruder out of his house. 

In my story, I wanted to flip roles and have the dog outside the house and be saved by the homeowner.The only thing about the original story that stayed true in mine, is that its about the concept of a dog trusting a man. 

Bibliography:The Faithful House-Dog, The Fables of Phaedrus, Christopher Smart, (1887)