Why the Dog and Cat are Enemies

 I'm a cat. For as long as I've remembered, I've always been a cat. I've lived in this house in this village ever since I was a small kitten. There is a wife and a husband, my caring owners. I also live with a dog. I've always had good relations with the dog, however, it does make me mad sometimes that it seems like the dog always gets my owner's attention. Nonetheless, there was no bad blood between me and the dog.

We lived well for a long time until recently, we weren't. I noticed that the wife and husband, my owners, grew poorer and poorer by the day! I had wondered what had happened. The dog noticed too, but he had no idea. For several weeks, we've tried our best to be supportive of our owners. However, as the days and weeks passed, it seems clear that their conditions were getting worse and worse.

One day, the dog came up to me and told me about how he had noticed that the owners do not have their gold ring anymore. I never thought anything of the ring, but the dog told me that it had magical powers. 

I had cautioned him, however, that the gold ring was kept in a chest, locked up, and neither of them could get there. The dog then suggested that I capture a mouse and make the mouse gnaw a hole through the chest so that we can get the gold ring. I liked that idea. I did what the dog instructed me to do, captured the mouse, and made him gnaw a hole through the chest.

At last, we received the ring!

However, since they sold the ring to someone far, far away, we had a long way to go back home. And off we went. I notice that the dog was going much, much slower than I did. Perhaps it was the fact that it wasn't as nimble or as swift as I was. Each building or house that we came across, I could easily jump and climb across it. However, the dog had to go around the building.

I grew impatient. I decided that the dog was taking too much time, so I continued ahead and thought that I would meet the dog later at the house.

After I reached the house and showed the wife and husband that I've located and collected their gold ring, they were so happy. They even promised to feed me and care for me endlessly!

I was content.

However, a couple of days later, the dog came home and was met with beatings and scolding. The wife and husband was awfully upset that the dog did not help with the retrieval of the ring. Being a cat, I could not tell the wife and husband the truth either!

From then on, the dog grew increasingly angry with me. He would chase me around for hours and harassed me because of that incident. I couldn't help the fact that he felt robbed! I felt guilty that the dog did not get any credit, but I grew ever so angry each time he chased me. I got angrier and angrier.

From that point on, we considered ourselves enemies.

(The Cat and Dog Fighting. Source: H. Hondius)

Author's Note: The story is derived from an old Chinese fairy tale that depicted the story about the eternal rivalry between the dog and the cat (Why Dog and Cat are Enemies by R. Wilhelm). In the original story, it was told from an omniscient point of view, showing the adventures of the dog and cat as well as the struggles of the family in the very beginning. In my story, I retold the tale from the first-person point of view of the cat.