Elephants, Dog and Mice

 

I have never known a dog and an elephant make friends. Elephants will eventually become accus tomed to certain dogs in camps, and dogs learn not to bark at them and always to keep out of reach of the slash of a trunk or the kick of a leg. The hatred of elephants for dogs cannot easily be explained. It is possible that they are afraid of dogs biting their trunks, though I do not think such a thing ever happened. It has occurred to me that it might be an instinctive dread of hydrophobia, which is the dread of everyone who keeps a dog in camp, Burman and European Assistant alike.

Nevertheless practically every European Assistant keeps a dog and I have almost always had one myself. The elephants hate them and one is always losing one's dog, owing to leopard, tiger, bear and snakes. The tragedies of lost dogs are often an Assistant's first experience of real grief.

 It is easy to ask, why, under such conditions, do you keep a dog? But I know of no other existence where a dog is so necessary as a com panion to share every moment of one's life and to drive away loneliness.

 So far as I know, elephants don't worry about snakes, though the 'oozies' (drivers) believe that a number of elephants calves die of snake-bite. I have had this reported to me many times but in no instance could I find any proof. The Burmans believe that the hairs of an elephant's tail pull out very easily after it has been bitten by a snake. But, as this has also to be proved, I was never able to accept it as conclusive evidence that an elephant had been killed by snake-bite.

There is a widespread belief that an elephant is really terrified of a mouse. The idea makes an obvious appeal to the human love of paradox. But, if it is true, I can see no reason Elephants, Dog and Mice for it. It certainly cannot be because the elephant is afraid of the mouse getting inside his trunk, since, with one snort, he could eject it like a cork from a popgun. However, most fears are imaginary and there is no reason why elephants should be immune from such terrors.

Taken from Practice and Progress, 1994