Why Cats and Dogs Don't Get Along

Long ago, a kind old man named Tip Pul ran a small wine shop by a river, and a mountain spirit named Tokgabi gave him a magic stone as a reward for his kindness.Tokgabi dropped the stone into Tip Pul's wine bottle, and after that the bottle never went empty, no matter how much wine he sold.Tip Pul's only companions were a loyal dog named Snap and a clever cat named Mee Yow, and the three of them lived happily together.

One day the bottle was suddenly empty, and no matter how hard Tip Pul shook it, the magic stone was gone.Without the stone, Tip Pul grew poorer every day, and his two pets decided they had to find it and bring it back.Mee Yow searched every house in the village at night, knocking over pots and jars while she hunted through the rafters.

Snap ran across the whole countryside instead, sniffing under sheds and barns, but neither pet could find any sign of the stone.Finally, one day, Mee Yow smelled something familiar coming from inside a small stone box in a rich man's house.She scratched and clawed at the box, but it would not open, no matter how hard she tried.

So Mee Yow and Snap made a bargain with the mice of the house: if a mouse would gnaw the box open, the two pets would never hunt mice again for six months.Delighted, the mice gnawed a hole in the box and carried the shining stone out to the waiting cat and dog.Snap took the stone in his mouth at once and ran straight for the river, with Mee Yow following close behind.

"Climb on my back and hold the stone in your mouth," Snap told Mee Yow. "Just don't open your jaws until we reach the other side."Mee Yow held on tightly and kept the stone between her teeth as Snap swam hard across the cold river.But partway across, some children on the bank saw the odd pair and burst out laughing, and Mee Yow could not help laughing along with them.

The moment she opened her mouth to laugh, the stone slipped out and sank to the bottom of the river, lost forever.Snap was furious that all his hard swimming had been wasted, and from that day on, cats and dogs stopped being friends.And that, the old stories say, is why cats and dogs in Korea still cannot get along to this very day.