The Dog and the Two Tortas

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The Dog and the Two Tortas (Spanish: El Perro de las Dos Tortas) is a Mexican story that has become an important part of the culture of that country.

This fable describes the story of a dog who is holding a torta in its mouth. Happy of having a delicious treat in its mouth it walks by a river and sees itself in the reflection on the water. Thinking it sees a different dog who is also holding a torta it feels jealous of it and not content with already having one it wants the one it sees on the reflection. Trying to obtain what it thinks is a second torta he barks at it and thus drops the torta it already had. The torta sinks in the water and the dog ends up with no torta at all.

The analogy to the story is commonly used when someone who already has a relationship with someone, looks for a second one and loses the one they already have... and the one they were after, but it similarly applies to any case in which someone loses something valuable while trying to attain something else, to no avail. For such cases it is common to utter the phrase "Quedarse como el perro de las dos tortas" (To be left just like the dog and the two tortas).