Thieving Stray Dog

According to a report on the BBC News website (here) a man in India has filed a report with police that a stray dog ran away with a bag containing 400,000 rupees (over $7,000) sent to him by his son working in the middle east. The bag was on his bed at the time and he had briefly gone outside to wash his face. When he returned he saw the dog running away with his money and gave chase but couldn’t catch it. Part of the money was later found in a nearby street but the rest is still missing.

The speculation is that the dog thought the bag contained food but no details are given as to why the dog may have thought so. I could imagine a leather bag being of interest to a dog but the Hindustan Times (here) adds the detail that it was actually a polythene bag. This bag may have previously contained food or even if it hadn’t so much edible waste that is dumped on the streets is actually in polythene bags that the dog may have simply learned to associate the smell of polythene with food. Perhaps the moral of the story in this case is that society needs to be more careful with waste disposal.

Stretching the imagination and being a little cynical, two other possibilities come to mind. Perhaps the dog was not stray but actually trained as a bag/money snatcher. I have never heard of this happening with a dog but believe it has been done with monkeys and the trainability of dogs would certainly make it possible.

However, part of me also questions whether any dog was involved at all. In this case the victim seems genuine with no motivation to lie and the fact that part of the money was recovered in the street by the police supports his story but it wouldn’t be the first time that a stray dog was framed for something it didn’t do.

Edit: A small but important detail to add from the Gulf News (here). The man went out to wash his hands because he had just been eating.

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)