Dog In the Manger
Meaning: A person unwilling to let other people have or do something, even though their having it or doing it is of no actual consequence or value to the first person.
Origins & History: Derives from a Fable of Aesop (sixth century BCE, although he amounts pretty much to a fable himself) about a dog who positioned himself on top of a manger – a hay trough – inside a farmyard barn and would not allow the farm’s ox or horse near the manger to eat the hay in it, although he had no desire to eat the hay himself.
* from the book Dog the Wag by Mike Darton
