Dead cat in the well

“Once upon a time there was a village. The village relied upon a well for its water consumption. One day a cat fell and died in the well. The water was stinky and made the villagers sick. The villagers did not know how to take care of the issue.

During those days a Sage came by, passing through the village. The villagers sought his advice; they told him about their issue asked him for a solution. The sage told them to drain all of the water in the well and clean it up with water not from the well and drain that water too and wait for a few days till the new water oozes. This water will be safe to drink from then on. The villagers thanked him for the advice and wowed to follow it. The Sage went by his way and promised to return the following month.

A month went by.

The Sage returned to the village. He asked the villager how things were going on. The villagers told him their situation had not become better even after they had followed the Sage’s instructions. The Sage was surprised. He asked one of the villagers to bring him a glass of water from the well. In the water he found a cats hair. He immediately went to the well and looked into the waters. He found a dead cats body in it.

The villagers had indeed cleaned the water in the well, but never realized that the dead cat’s body needed to be removed. The sage gave them a solution suitable for the problem, but failed to understand the villager’s ways before he advised them.”

Moral of this story is “remove the dead cat’s body before cleaning up the well”, "Understand the villagers before advising them".


Remove the problem before making an improvement. It is not enough to paint over the walls when there is a hole in the wall. It is necessary to fix the hole and then may be paint it. It is necessary to fix the back-end of an application before making new and improved changes to the front end. You may take this example and make it your own, to fix a problem before making or adding improvements.