They are as close to a dog as you're going to get in a rodent. If you cut a dog's head off, you get 25 hours bad luck. It is bad luck to kill a Pegasus, unicorn, horse, or similar, if it is pure white in colour. If it were a dog, it would have bitten you already. Twents in Woord en Gebruik.
Life is like a dog sled team.
If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes. How, then, can the dog be anything other than a lover of learning since it defines what's its own and what's alien. No man can be condemned for owning a dog. Every time it wags it's tail it knocks over a chair. The old saying about old dogs and new tricks only applies to certain people.