A happy Dog trotted along the road one afternoon, a big, juicy bone clamped proudly in his jaws. He had gotten it from the butcher himself, and he could already imagine how good it would taste once he got home.
His path took him over a narrow wooden footbridge that crossed a clear, calm stream. Halfway across, the Dog happened to glance down into the still water below — and stopped in his tracks.
There, looking right back up at him, was another dog. And in that other dog's mouth was a bone that looked even bigger and juicier than his own!
"Well now," the Dog thought, his mouth watering at the sight, "if I bark and snap at that dog, surely he'll drop his bone, and then I can have them both!"
He didn't stop to think it through. He opened his jaws wide and lunged at the water with a great GRRRRR!
But the moment he opened his mouth, his own bone — the real one, the one he'd actually been holding — tumbled out and dropped, plop, into the stream, sinking away into the current before he could even blink.
And of course, the "other dog" and its enormous bone vanished too, because it had only ever been his own reflection, rippling and scattering in the water.
The Dog stood on the bridge for a long moment, staring down at the empty stream, his stomach growling and his tail drooping.
"I already had a perfectly good bone," he said to himself with a sigh, "and I lost it chasing after one that was never really there at all."
He walked the rest of the way home with his head a little low, but he never forgot the lesson that stream had taught him. From that day on, whenever the Dog had something good, he held onto it tight — and was grateful for exactly what he had.
The End.