What I find most fascinating about the word "dog" is how it is often used as a symbol for loyalty, and especially in Western influenced media, I had this image of "a man's best friend" which clashes incredibly hard with the negative connotations the word has as an insult. It was most curious to see those within Zimbabwean literature and politics.
I was also reminded of a South African author, J.M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace, who used dogs as an allegory for the racial tensions during the time right after apartheid where the novel is set. Considering how this was one of my first brushes with such strong dog metaphors in postcolonial literature, it was easy to compare that with the stories and poems of the Zimbabwean writers.