Here's why dogs are becoming scarce in Abuja, Nigeria:
"Everybody is eating dog meat openly now, that is why dogs are scarce," he says.
Many Abuja dog owners complain that their dogs have gone missing, probably ending up in the likes of Oga Bassey's big dog pepper soup pot.
The article comes complete with dog cuisine lingo:
404: A dog is also called 404 after the French-built Peugeot pick-up van, a tribute to a dog's ability to run fast
Headlights: A dish with the eyes of a dog as the most prominent component
Gear Box: Dog's liver, heart and kidneys (usually more expensive than ordinary meat)
Tyre: A dog's legs. Mr Umoh claims that eating a 'tyre' makes you a fast runner
Sentencing: The act of clubbing a dog to death rather than slaughtering it
That's mostly because dog is generally a very very dirty meat. Stray dogs will eat anything, and get all kinds of weird diseases and parasites. One lasingero told me that he didn't eat dog because a friend showed him a trick. After the meat is cooked, put your hand over a section of it for a couple of minutes. After removing the hand, there were parasites that had climbed out of the flesh.
Not sure if that's true, but I certainly wouldn't eat any stray dogs. I also try to stay away from bayawaks or other scavengers.