Dogs and Africa

While having lunch today in a local and humble sports club, this very friendly man who lives in our neighbourhood engaged me in conversation over dogs. I passed onto him the information that I know of the association between dogs and humans, and he shared with me two of his experiences back in colonial Angola. 

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In order to cross a river safely, villagers threw puppies into the water. The crocodiles came to snatch them and then the crossing would take place.

* * *

Some villagers painted themselves in white and beat the local dogs. Thus, when the colonial tax collector came, the dogs started barking at the white man they detested giving the villagers enough time to hide their money and their jewels.

* * *

In the first case, my girlfriend's dog carves a snip out of every bone she gnaws at. Is she thinking of retaliating, marching villagers or a cruel red riding hood (photo) into crocodile-infested rivers under the threat of a snip? 

And the latter story makes me wonder if those villagers read Pavlov's research on dogs, or if they had found out how to condition dogs behaviour much before the Russian did.