Aesop’s Fables Month: The Dog in the Manger 🐕🐂🌾
I recall often saying “Don’t be a dog in a manger” in my youth. It was usually directed toward my little sister or to anyone I felt was being selfish with something they could get more use out of by sharing—especially sharing with me. Lol 😂
I’m guessing it was because of learning this parable when I was really young, but it’s one that still has an effect on me. Now, especially as I am trying to get rid of items I’ve held onto for too long, I say this to myself to help me let go.
But the underlying human condition the fable targets goes far deeper than toy-hoarding or cleaning out a closet. It exposes a bitter, spiteful posture of the heart that refuses to let others be blessed by what we cannot even use ourselves.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Dog in the Manger (Perry 224)
A dog was lying in a manger full of hay, resting comfortably after a long day. Presently, a team of weary oxen, coming in from their work in the fields, approached the manger to eat the hay.
The dog snarled and snapped at them, aggressively blocking them from touching a single stalk, even though he could not eat the hay himself and had no use for it whatsoever.
The weary oxen looked at him in sorrow and said, “What a selfish creature! He can eat no hay himself, and yet he will not allow us, who are starving, to eat it either.”
Guarding What We Cannot Use vs. Sharing God’s Abundance
There is a unique kind of spiritual malice in withholding good simply out of spite, jealousy, or possessiveness. When we cling tightly to roles, resources, or knowledge purely to keep others from having them—even when they bring us no personal benefit—we step right into the trap of the dog in the manger.
We see this starkly addressed by Jesus when He rebuked the religious leaders of His day for shutting people out of God’s truth:
“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”
— Luke 11:52 (B.S.B.)
The scribes and Pharisees had no desire to truly live out or embrace the deeper truths of God’s kingdom, yet they aggressively guarded their position of gatekeeping so that no one else could access it either. They sat upon a blessing like a dog on a pile of hay.
James warns us against this bitter fruit in our relationships and communities:
“But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come from down above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.”
— James 3:14–15 (B.S.B.)
Open Hands and Open Hearts
Today, let’s examine our own lives. Are there areas where we are holding onto things—whether it’s material clutter we refuse to pass on, wisdom we refuse to share, or grace we are reluctant to extend—simply because we don’t want someone else to benefit?
And reading the Scriptures reminded me of another scenario where I was volunteering to teach a group and was trying to do all the tasks myself. It wasn’t because people didn’t offer to help but because I thought being a leader meant doing all the preparations and presentations alone. Then someone told me, “You could be stealing someone else’s blessing.” They went on to explain that if God was offering a part to another, and I grabbed up the part myself, I could be stealing both the performance and the opportunity for them to say yes to The Lord whether they yielded to that invitation or not.
May the Lord soften our hearts, cure our petty hoarding and our prideful tendencies to do it all, and give us open hands to share His abundant blessings with those on life’s journey with us.
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