Good Reading: "The Three Wedding-Guests" by Ludwig Bechstein (translated into English)

 In a certain village there once lived three dogs that used to stick together. One day they were taking a stroll when they heard there was to be a wedding celebration and that everyone in the village was invited.

Soon the smell of cooking and baking of all sorts of good food wafted in the breeze from the whole length of the village. The three dogs talked about how they best should go to the wedding to see if anything was left for them. They found it best not to go all three at once, but singly, one after the other, to avoid drawing much attention.

The first dog started off and made for the kitchen of the house. There he snatched up a great piece of meat and was about to make off with it when he was caught; He got a sound thrashing, and the meat was snatched out of his teeth.

He returned to his companions as hungry as he had left them. They eagerly asked him what had happened to him, but the dog was so ashamed that he did not tell that all he had got was a beating. He only said, "One must be very sharp and able to put up with both hard and soft."

When the other two dogs heard this, they imagined there was a vast variety of things to be had at the wedding and that many pieces, hard and soft, of flesh and bone, fell to the lot of those who attended. So the second dog ran away to the wedding as fast as he could. He too made his way into the kitchen and snatched up what came first. But he was seen before he got out of the kitchen. A saucepan of boiling-hot water was flung after him and hit him and scalded him somewhat, although he tried to shake off the water at once.

He hid his pain and made his way back to his comrades. "It is very hot in the kitchen. One ought to be able to bear both cold and heat."

This made the third dog believe that the guests were changing meals – from warm food to dessert or cakes. Fearing to lose his chance, he ran off as quickly as he could in the hope of getting there before the sweets and the dessert were laid on the table. But he had scarcely walked into the house, when he was detected, and his tail shut in between the door and door case. He could neither walk backwards or forwards, and had to endure much whipping pain too. He only escaped by leaving the skin of his tail behind him.

"Well, how did you manage at the wedding?" asked both of his companions, chuckling to themselves. The third dog, worst-served of all, put his tail between his legs as well as he could and then answered, "One should be able to spare hair at such a place as that!"

The three dogs considered what good the wedding soup, the wedding meat and the wedding cake had done them, and concluded they had had quite enough of wedding-cookery.