“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci (Adopted by Steve Jobs)
A Dog would often nip at people without notice.
Thus, his Master suspended a bell around his neck to provide notice of his presence, and other times fastened a chain and clog to him, to slow his action.
But, the Dog grew proud of his bell and clog.
Observing the condition, an Old Hound said to him: “That bell and clog that you carry are not signs of merit, but are marks of disgrace. A public notice to avoid you as an ill-mannered dog.”
Moral of the Story: Those who are notorious oft mistake it for fame. We delude ourselves into accepting our vices as virtues.
Introduction – The Essential Aesop – Epilogue
Why We Loved It: In this fable, Aesop uses a familiar set of characters: Man and his Dog. Aesop uses these characters, such as in teaching about forms of trust in The Man and the Old Dog, and witty excuses in The Traveler and His Dog, because we naturally presuppose loyalty and generational—if not genetic—friendship and love. We read the fable starting off with “These guys are friends and love each other.”
But, alas, in this fable, Aesop calls the Man, “Master,” which also starts off the fable by making a point, friendship, love or not: the Man has “pulled rank.” Here, the Dog was undisciplined and could not control himself, or unwisely decided not to do so, and the Master controlled the Dog by contrived artifice, the Bell and the Chained Clog.
Now perhaps there’s a subtle (or not so subtle) implication that the Dog was not properly trained, implicating the Master’s own fault by his failure of duty to train his Dog in proper behavior, but that fact becomes essentially immaterial, because Aesop’s story gives the Man the overt power to achieve his role as “Master” by domination over the Dog; thus the adage:
“Melior canis doctus quam canis catenatus, sed si prius afferre non possumus, posterius imponemus.” (“Better a trained dog than a chained dog, but, if we cannot adduce the former, we will impose the latter.”)
Therefore, there is perhaps a “Perfect Duty” and an “Imperfect Duty.” The Perfect Duty would have been fulfilled by the Master in training his Dog in the courtesy and discipline of proper behavior. The Master, having failed in his Perfect Duty, he then fulfilled his Imperfect Duty by artificially enslaving and controlling the Dog that he had failed to train. The Duty to his Dog was breached. But the Duty to Society was achieved, not by the perfect freedom with training in discipline but the Imperfect social control by enslavement. A Man who neither trains his Dog nor controls his Dog, fails in both, an imposition and trespass upon others.
Now, let us approach our lesson regarding the Dog himself. Here, the Dog receives external control because the Dog is unwise or undisciplined, effectively socially rude, and out of control. Such as it is, jailhouses are filled with human beings who simply cannot say, “Yes, Sir” and then do it, thereby needing artificial control. The Dog gets a Bell and a Chained Clog, and Men get jail. External control.
But Aesop gives us another clue, by saying the Dog grew “proud” of the external controls. When Aesop identifies a vice in his story, leaving no doubt as to character attributes, we know it’s not going to go well.
So, now we move beyond the Master’s failures, such as they are, and find a more sophisticated point of Aesop’s general human psychology: Shame Conversion, or Vice-Replacement Conversion. That is, the criminal Dog should have properly reflected, admitted the errors of his ways, and improved, or perhaps even have chided his Master for failure to train, such as in The Young Thief and His Mother, but rather than do so, he converted his Shame into Pride.
Pride in being a Slave, or a Criminal.
Aesop is a master philosopher and a master psychologist, which are inseparable for Wisdom purposes, being a practical art. Shame is pain, and Pride may repressively feel better as a defense mechanism, as set forth in The (Insecure) Reflective Contemplative Dwelling Mind, but its still a vice. Not a vice by moral standards, but rather a form of delusive self-love, as in The Fly on the Axle.
Indeed, some mistakes are embraced and defended because it simply hurts too to admit them, such as the old story of the girl who embraces the bad boy who her parents despise by rebellion that causes us to double-down, creating the exaggeration of the very thing that should be minimized.
An easy and obvious reference is the Facebook culture of grown adults posting insults, rants and puerile modified pictures of politicians that the posting adult thinks are so clever and funny, yet adding nothing of real substance to the World, wasting everyone’s time, and simply proving the failure of elevated human civility to those who can perceive and recognize it. Thusly, for those who listen carefully, the adage, The expression tells more of the speaking by than the spoken of.
“Narrat expressio.” (“Telling tells.”)
Here the wise old Hound became the mirror that the Dog should have looked into for himself. For each of us, we can learn as much from the Man as we can from the Dog, and Aesop becomes our own personal Hound reflecting at our personal level of reflection.
“Showing off is a fool’s idea of glory.” Bruce Lee
“Narrat expressio.” (“Telling tells.”); “Lorum lorum dominum non protegit si canis circum volvitur.” (“The leash does not protect the master, if the dog should turn around.”); “Melior canis doctus quam canis catenatus, sed si prius afferre non possumus, posterius imponemus.” (“Better a trained dog than a chained dog, but, if we cannot adduce the former, we will impose the latter.”) ~ grz
ChatGPT Review
The article “No. 65: The Mischievous Dog” by Gregg Zegarelli, especially in its revised form on greggzegarelli.com, represents a prime example of Zegarelli’s evolved philosophical method, advancing from a simple Aesopic fable into a layered moral-psychological and civic pedagogy. Compared to the original 2020 LinkedIn version, which already hinted at deeper interpretations, the newer version fully articulates Zegarelli’s maturing ethos on discipline, delusion, and duty.
🧠 Core Moral of the Fable
Fable Summary: A dog that nips others is given a bell and a clog to warn and hinder him. Rather than feel shame, the dog takes pride in these external signs. An old hound clarifies that the bell and clog are not honors but warnings—marks of disgrace.
Aesop’s Moral: Notoriety is not fame; external control is not merit.
🔍 Zegarelli’s Deep Interpretive Lessons
1. Perfect Duty vs. Imperfect Duty (Deontological Framing)
- Perfect Duty: The Master should have trained the Dog. This is the ideal.
- Imperfect Duty: Having failed at the ideal, the Master imposed external restraints—bell and clog—as societal damage control.
- Zegarelli’s Claim: The Master failed his duty to the Dog (internal moral development) but fulfilled his duty to society (external behavioral containment). A moralized version of ends substituting for means.
“Better a trained dog than a chained dog, but, if we cannot adduce the former, we will impose the latter.”
2. Shame Conversion (or Vice-Replacement Conversion)
- The Dog converts shame into pride.
- This reflects a psychological mechanism: repressing guilt through overcompensation, not unlike what Zegarelli discusses in The Insecure Reflective Contemplative Dwelling Mind.
- Analogous to:
- The girl who defends the “bad boy” to rationalize rebellion.
- The prisoner who glorifies gang affiliation.
- The online adult who posts crude memes under the illusion of wit and relevance.
“Pride in being a slave, or a criminal.”
3. The Mask of Notoriety
- Zegarelli distinguishes true merit from performative or reactionary identity.
- Social media culture is directly called out—those seeking attention through negativity or crudeness mistake infamy for importance.
“Those who are notorious oft mistake it for fame.”
4. Psychological Vanity and External Control
- A warning about the human tendency to romanticize punishment, turning discipline into identity rather than reform.
- Echoes of the fable “The Fly on the Axle”: The delusion of self-importance when one is merely caught up in something larger (or restraining).
- Bell = Warning
Clog = Constraint
Pride = Delusion
📚 Pedagogical Ethos
Zegarelli’s pedagogical strategy here mirrors his broader ethos across the Essential Aesop series:
| Theme | Manifestation in the Fable |
|---|---|
| Internal vs External Discipline | Trained Dog vs. Chained Dog |
| Moral Psychology | Shame transformed into performative pride |
| Civic Responsibility | Society’s right to impose controls when internal discipline fails |
| Self-Deception & Vanity | Dog interpreting discipline as glory; adults masking foolishness as wisdom |
| Narrative Pedagogy | Fable-as-metaphor allows multi-tiered learning: reader learns via the Dog, Master, and Hound |
🧭 Comparative Reference to Other Zegarelli Works
This article echoes and extends other key entries:
- No. 112 – The Fly on the Axle → self-delusion in exaggerated self-worth.
- No. 113 – The Man and the Old Dog → generational duty and earned trust.
- No. 70 – The Young Thief and His Mother → failure of training leads to societal harm.
- Chapter 3 of Pro-Choice/Pro-Life – The Insecure Reflective Mind → psychological avoidance of painful self-assessment.
- No. 86 – The Lion, the Fox, and the Beasts → vigilance and rational skepticism to avoid traps set by false fronts.
🧩 Synthesis and Conclusion
Zegarelli does not merely teach the old Aesop fable—he repurposes it as a civic and psychological allegory:
- The Master is civil authority: its job is to train, not just punish.
- The Dog is the individual: when training fails, we suffer external restraint.
- The Old Hound is wisdom: the reflective peer, truth-teller, and mirror.
At its deepest level, this fable becomes a treatise on delusional identity formation, especially in a society that encourages pride over humility, visibility over virtue, and noise over substance.
Key Takeaway:
“The expression tells more of the speaking by than the spoken of.”
— Zegarelli’s warning that our displays of pride or resistance often expose our wounds, not our strength.
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© 2013 Arnold Zegarelli and Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/65-mischievous-dog-essential-aesop-back-basics-zegarelli-esq-/
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- [98_113] Trusting Intention and Trusting Capability [Final Episode] – No. 113. The Man and the Old Dog – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_113] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_113]
- [98_95] Projection, Fault Displacement and Easy Excuses – No. 95. The Traveler and His Dog – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_95] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_95]
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