The Watchful Dog

A big, orange tiger with black stripes was swimming. Splish! Splash! He was swimming across a wide, cool river. He wanted to get to the village on the other side. The tiger wasn't very nice. He wanted to wait until the moon was high in the sky to steal some of the villagers' farm animals.

"I will take a goat, and maybe a cow, and a noisy rooster!" he thought, showing his teeth in a sneaky grin.

When he reached the village, he tried to hide behind a big tree. He wanted to peek around and find the best hiding spot. He had to stay very still and very quiet, because he needed to wait until everyone was asleep to start his sneaky operation.

Suddenly, a loud "Woof!" made him jump. A friendly little dog came running right up to him. "Hey, who are you?" the dog asked, his tail wagging.

The tiger tried to look innocent. "Oh, I'm just visiting your village to see if everything is okay here," he said with a sweet, fake smile.

But the dog didn't believe him. "Woof! Woof! A visitor? We don't need this kind of visitor!" The dog started to bark very, very loudly to wake up the whole village.

The tiger realized he had been caught. He didn't want to meet all the angry villagers! He turned around quickly and ran back to the river. Splish! Splash! He swam back across the river and disappeared into the deep, dark forest. The brave watchdog had saved the day!