This 1933 shorty story is a humorous account of life with a dog named Muggs. Muggs, an Airedale, has a mind of his own. For example, he won't take care of an invasion of mice in the house, but he does love to bite people.

Luckily for Muggs, the narrator's mother has a soft spot in her heart for him and won't hear of getting rid of him or curtailing his behavior. Instead, she sends boxes of chocolate every Christmas to people Muggs has bitten (the list grows to 40). She goes to a person who specializes in "harmonious vibrations" to try to set up the right vibrations so Muggs won't bite people. That doesn't work, but the mother learns to blame the people bitten for their fate.

Once, having angered Muggs, the narrator cowers on the mantlepiece, only to have it come crashing down. Later in Muggs's life, the mother arranges household affairs around Muggs. Since the trash man, the iceman, and the laundry man refuse to come to the yard with Muggs in it (where he usually is), the family goes to great pains to meet these men off the property.

The story is part of a series of light-hearted tales. Like the others, this one is meant to amuse and perhaps take readers' minds off the struggles brought on by the Great Depression. Today, it offers readers social history about prosperous middle class life in the 1930s—a time when people still kept food in an ice box chilled with a block of ice, were visited by door-to-door salesmen, and women stayed at home to run a household. Thurber creates his humor by exaggeration—the family's indulgence of Muggs is told in a matter-of-the-fact way and yet is so over-the-top we can't help but laugh.