Highly Commended Story - The Brave Dog Moti

“The Brave Dog Moti” by Gaurav Parekh, Shree Vallabh Sanskar Dham's Shreemati Shobhaben Pratapbhai School, India, is the Highly Commended story in the junior category of the second biannual Short Story Contest 2018.

Gaurav Parekh is studying in Class IV at Shree Vallabh Sanskar Dham’s Smt. S.P. Patel Day Boarding School, Pardi, Valsad. He is an avid reader and he loves to read lots of books. He likes to read story books, science magazines and sometimes books of famous sports persons also. Some of his favourite activities are going to beach, forest areas with rivers and having splash over there. Besides, he is learning to play Tabla and Cricket. He has visited many places in his country so far and has a list of places to visit around the globe as well. He would love to become a scientist and bring solutions to problems faced by humanity.

The Brave Dog Moti

Once upon a time, there lived a young shepherd named Ramu. He had a pet dog named Moti and 20 sheep. Everyday Ramu used to take his sheep for grazing in the meadow. Ramu also used to take his long bamboo cane and Moti along with him so that the wild animals would not come and eat the sheep and he could play with Moti in the free-time.

One day Ramu had to go to the city for selling the wool, so he was wondering who would take his sheep for grazing the next day as he could not keep his sheep hungry for a whole day. Suddenly, an idea struck his mind. He asked Moti if he could take his sheep for grazing the next day. Moti agreed readily.

The next day, Ramu left for the city early in the morning at the crack of the dawn. At about 8 in the morning, Moti told the sheep to make a line, the sheep obeyed Moti and made a line. Then, Moti started leading them towards the meadow. When they reached there, Moti made a circle out of stones, twigs, heaps of grass and so on. Then he told them to go in the circle and start grazing. The sheep stared grazing in the circle. After some time, a little lamb got bored and went out of the circle. Moti saw this and quickly told the little lamb to go inside the circle. The little lamb hurried back into the circle. Moti kept guarding them without eating a single morsel. In the afternoon, a wolf in the jungle saw this and thought “Oh! Today Ramu is not there with his long cane, it is only a small dog guarding them. Today is a good opportunity, let me seize this opportunity and have a good fat sheep. Thinking so, the wolf slowly started prowling towards the sheep. When he was near enough to the sheep, he started running towards them. When Moti saw this, he was alarmed and so he started running towards the wolf. When the wolf saw this, he told Moti “Hey small dog, why are you running towards me? I will defeat you with a single swipe of my paw, so just go aside and let me have a big fat sheep.” Then Moti replied angrily “Well, let’s see. I will not let you touch even a single sheep.” Then he barked loudly and jumped on the wolf and took him by surprise. The wolf got scared and thought “Oh, it seems that I am in trouble, I thought that this dog is harmless, but he has shown his true colours by showing me how fierce he is! I will better flee from here. This small dog won’t let me kill even a single sheep. I’d better go back to the forest and have a rabbit or something like that.” Thinking so the wolf started running towards the forest. Moti again started guarding the sheep.

Then in the evening, Moti asked the sheep “Have you all eaten your fill? The sheep told that they had eaten to their heart’s content. Then Moti again told the sheep to make a line and start moving towards the lake.There they drank some water. Once again, Moti told the sheep to make a line and start walking towards their home. Moti joined the line at the end. When they reached home, Moti locked them in the pen.

After a short time, Ramu came back home. Then the sheep narrated to Ramu how Moti had saved them from the wolf and how he guarded them without eating anything. He was surprised to know about Moti’s bravery. He patted Moti on his back and gave him some warm milk and biscuits.

At the end, they all were happy.

Moral: We should not be afraid in any situation and should face the situation like Moti did.