Wiktionary traces the proverb to Turkish, it urur, kervan yurur, the dog barks, the caravan walks on, where it rhymes. Arabic carries it as al-qafilatu tasiru wal-kilabu tanbahu; Persian, German, and a dozen other languages hold versions. Goethe wrote der Hund bellt und die Karawane geht voruber, and Don Quixote gave Spanish its variant: ladran, Sancho, senal que cabalgamos, they bark, Sancho, a sign that we ride.
The proverb is the standard-issue consolation of anyone proceeding despite criticism: generals, founders, authors ignoring reviews. But it cuts both ways: it dignifies perseverance and licenses deafness, since the barking might be a warning about the cliff. Every user of the proverb appoints themselves the caravan, which is exactly what the dogs would say.
The claim: motion manufactures its opposition, a parked caravan attracts no dogs, so criticism is not the obstacle to progress but its exhaust, and the proverb secretly celebrates the dogs as proof of motion. Cervantes saw it: ladran, senal que cabalgamos. Verdict: structurally true and rhetorically dangerous, since it converts every objection into validation, the same unfalsifiable fuel this archive flags elsewhere. Sometimes the dogs bark because the caravan is on fire.
If the dogs never stop the caravan, why does every caravan keep mentioning the dogs?