You’re My Dawg, Dog A
L e x i c o n
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Dog Terms for People
You’re My Dawg, Dog A
L e x i c o n
o f
Dog Terms for People By Donald Friedman Illustrations by J.C. Suarès
For the loyal companions: Puck Friedman, Marley Palmer, Stella Pusateri, Buddy Shapiro, (Harry) Bing Stiles, and the late Linda Lukens, Brubeck Brodzinsky, Babe Schwartz, Indiana Jones Harris, Casey Leopold, Deke Lowenstein, Harry Isler, Bart (Bartholomew James) Nora, Clapton Palmer, and their loving masters.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. Groucho Marx
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Dog (n) (Canis lupus familiaris) The wolf that
after 30,000 years of domestication became the hairless xolo that shocked Columbus, a poodle you can stick in your pocket, and a border collie with a thousand-word vocabulary. Most especially, man’s best friend, his protector, helper, companion. Today, the dog detects cancers, seizures, and blood sugar levels, not to mention bombs, drugs, and missing people. He guards your home, hunts, herds, draws sleds and carts, soldiers, and carries messages. He leads you when you’re blind, gives you signals when you’re deaf, tows your wheelchair when you’re disabled. He regulates your heart. Your dog is the ultimate acolyte; he believes you are the very image of God. His centrality to our lives has led inevitably to an equally central place in our language—the word “dog” alone or as part of a description of dog qualities or behaviors finds dozens of everyday applications. 9
“The Great Catrine turned out to be a real dog.”
2. The person in your life who possesses the best of the canine’s traits. Your main man. The one who’s always got your back. The friend who’ll help you bury the body. Also, colloquially, dawg. “You’re my dawg, Josiah.” 3. An auto-antonym, “dog” means, as well, someone who possesses the worst of the canine’s traits, someone who exhibits mean, reproachful, or contemptible behavior. “Herb’s a real dog for selling knockoff watches to his friends as the real thing.” Shylock rebuffs the loan-seeking Antonio with “You spurn’d me such a day; another time / You called me dog.” The negative outlook defined by “cynic” finds its origin in the Greek philosophers who were called “Cynics” or “dog-like” (“kynikos” in Greek) for their rejection of social conventions. 4. A very unattractive woman. “Sally’s decision to shave her head, insert a bone through her nose, and tattoo ‘Black Sabbath’ on her forehead has turned her into a dog that even dogs shy away from.” 5. Something that’s failed or poorly performing, like a stock or a Broadway show. “Amalgamated Schmaltz has been the worst dog in the NASDAQ, falling in three months from $75 to 11 cents a share.” 6. An iron support for holding fireplace logs. An andiron. Also called a firedog. 7. One of a large variety of mechanical devices with teeth or claws used for gripping and holding—such as the tool barbers once used for pulling teeth. 8. (v) To follow closely. “Josiah’s beagle used to dog his every step, and since he died Josiah says the memory of his little companion dogs his every waking hour.” 11
Big dog (n) The boss, an important personage, or
the most competitive in a field. 2. The constellation Canis Major. 3. The Boston Dynamics Big Dog robot, which looks and sounds like a giant mutated insect, can carry several hundred pounds for hours over any kind of terrain without losing its balance even when violently kicked from the side or traversing black ice, and without complaint. See it on YouTube.
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Bird dog (n) Like a dog that is trained to find
and retrieve birds, a person whose job is to find business opportunities. Pejoratively, the guy who goes after another guy’s girl—as in the Everly Brothers song of the same name with the admonitory chorus, “Hey bird dog, get away from my quail / Hey bird dog, you’re on the wrong trail.” 2. (v) To engage in such practices.
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Dog-faced liar (n) A compulsive dissembler.
Someone who tells blatant lies repeatedly. Mark Twain popularized the earlier coined ascending order of falsehoods: “lies, damn lies, and statistics,” but what statistician could hold a candle to our politicians, or our political spinmeisters?
Dog-fall (n) A tie or draw, especially in wrestling
when opponents hit the mat simultaneously so that no points are awarded to either. Any contest with no victor.
Dogfight (n) A no-holds-barred brawl. “When
Herb found Josiah with his fiancée Sally at the party, it turned into a scene out of Amores Perros—the two of them on the floor, Herb biting Josiah’s ear like he was Mike Tyson.” 2. One-on-one aerial combat. Two famous dogfighting aces from World War I were Eddie Rickenbacker and Baron Manfred von Richthofen. Battles with the latter were famously parodied by Charles Schulz with the legendary Snoopy fighting from the roof of his Sopwith Camel doghouse.
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Dogfight
Dog nap (n) Differs from a catnap only in that it’s taken sitting up. “When the airlines turned into flying subways, I found it impossible to get any sleep—the best I can hope for is a dog nap.”
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Dog nobbler (n) A bright fly-fishing lure.
Dog-paddle (n) A swimming stroke in which the swimmer lies on her stomach, head out of the water, and moves her hands forward and back while her legs jerk up and down—going through the water as a dog would. 2. (v) To swim using the dog-paddle. “While Sally lay indolently on the float, Herb brought her cold drinks and snacks, dogpaddling out to her, pushing the plastic foam tray with his nose.”
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Barking up the wrong tree Searching in the
wrong place for an answer or a solution; to be completely wrong about something, as dogs might continue to pursue prey at a tree from which it has escaped.
Better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion A proverb that appears in many forms in
many languages, advising that to be the leader of a small or less prestigious entity is better than being subordinate in a large one. A variant is “Better to be first in a village than second in Rome,� and, of course, to be a big fish in a small pond.
Bitch (n) A female dog. 2. For six centuries, a
malicious, overly aggressive, or bad-tempered woman, but recently embraced by some feminists and used to connote strong, excelling women. 3. A slang term of contempt for a subordinate man. 4. A difficult problem. 5. (v) To whine or complain excessively.
Bitch in heat (n) A female dog during the
approximately three-week period when she is fertile and said to be in estrus and sending out signals to any male dog in the vicinity of her indiscriminate desire to mate. 2. A woman who behaves in a sexually rapacious manner.
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Barking up the wrong tree
Live like a dog Living in poor, sad, or inhuman
conditions. Similar to “work like a dog,” “eat like a dog,” “be treated like a dog”—meaning, respectively, to work excessively and for inadequate compensation, to eat poorly, and to be mistreated.
Love me, love my dog A metaphoric way of
saying that a person must be accepted along with those people and things close to or attached to her; by extension, to be accepted with one’s foibles and weaknesses. Back in the 12th century, St. Bernard (appropriately enough) is claimed to have quoted the proverb in Latin: “Qui me amat, amet et canem 76
meum” (literally, “Who loves me, loves my dog, as well”), although why he did that is unclear. “Sally’s friends were disgusted with Herb’s drunkenness and discouraged Sally from bringing him around, until she called them on it and declared, ‘Love me, love my dog.’”
Man bites dog A journalistic trope signifying
that only the out-of-the-ordinary event is newsworthy. “Don’t you get it?” cried the cub reporter to his editor, “What could be more ‘man bites dog’ than this politician who’s admitting you can’t have services without taxes?”
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Put the dog off the scent A figure of speech
meaning to distract people from finding out some truth by giving them false or misleading information. Corporate criminals use all sorts of accounting chicanery to confuse investigators, while government officials just release half-truths or untruths to the media and assume that when the facts are revealed, so much time will have elapsed the voters won’t remember how they were deluded. “On the scent” (or “hot on the scent”) is when the trail is clear and the pursuers are close to the quarry—which may be person, animal, thing, or solution. “Keeping your nose to the ground” will help you stay on the scent and remain there until you’re right behind and “nipping at the heels” of the pursued.
Raining cats and dogs Raining heavily; a
downpour. “We entered the restaurant on a clear sunny day and when we exited two hours later it was raining cats and dogs.” One theory of this phrase’s origin is that flooding after heavy rains drowned so many cats and dogs that their bodies floating on the rivers in the streets gave the impression that they’d descended with the rain.
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Raining cats and dogs
Index A barking dog won’t bite A dog and his bone Barking up the wrong tree Better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion Big dog Bird dog Bitch Bitch in heat Black dog depression Blowing dogs off chains Blue dog Bring a dog to heel Call off the dogs Can’t teach an old dog new tricks Cats and dogs Chasing your own tail Content as fleas on a dog Crooked as a dog’s hind leg Cur Cut dog Die like a dog Dirty dog Dish dog Dog Dog and pony show Dog biscuit Dog box Dogcart Dog clutch Dog collar Dog days Dog-eared Dog-eat-dog Dog end Dog-eyed Dogface Dog-faced liar
59 59 60 60 12 13 60 60 14 63 15 63 63 63 64 64 65 65 65 15 65 15 16 9 66 16 16 16 16 16 18 19 19 19 20 20 22
Dog-fall Dogfight Dogfish Dogged Doggerel Doggie bag Doggie Day Doggie style Doggo Dog-hearted Dog hole Dog in a doublet Dog in the manger Dog it Dog Latin Dogleg hole Dogleg stairs Dog meat Dog nap Dog nobbler Dog-paddle Dog pile Dog rose or dog briar Dog salmon Dogsbody Dog shelf Dog star Dog tags Dog-tired Dogtooth Dogtown Dog watch Dog whipper Dog-whistle politics Dog with two tails Dog years Dogs Dog’s breakfast Dog’s breath
22 22 24 24 25 26 26 26 26 27 27 27 67 28 28 28 28 29 30 31 31 32 32 34 34 34 34 36 37 38 38 38 38 38 39 39 40 40 40
Dog’s chance Dog’s dinner Dog’s life Dogs of war Downward-facing dog Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked Every dog has its day Fit as a butcher’s dog Go to the dogs Hair of the dog (that bit you) Hangdog Have no dog in the fight Horn dog Hot dog Hound Hush puppies If you can’t run with the big dogs stay on the porch In the dog house Junkyard dog Kick the dog Lapdog Lead dog Let sleeping dogs lie Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas Like a blind dog in a meat market Like a dog with a bone Live like a dog Love me, love my dog Lucky dog Mad dog Man bites dog Mongrel Mucky pup Mutt Not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog
40 41 41 42 43 67 67 68 69 69 43 70 44 44 70 70 70 71 72 73 46 46 74 74 74 74 76 76 46 48 77 78 78 78 78
One dog barks at something and a hundred dogs bark back Prairie dog Pup tent Puppy love Puppy pile Put on the dog Put the dog off the scent Raining cats and dogs Reservoir Dogs Running dog Salty dog Sea dog See a man about a dog Shaggy-dog story Shouldn’t happen to a dog Sick as a dog Son of a bitch Tail between the legs Tail wagging the dog That dog won’t hunt The dog ate my homework The dogs bark but the caravan moves on The scalded dog fears cold water There’s life in the old dog yet Three-dog night Throw the dog a bone Throw to the dogs Top dog Topdog-underdog Tough dog to keep on the porch Underdog Whose dog died? Why keep a dog and bark yourself? Yaller dog Yellow dog
78 49 80 80 81 81 82 82 49 84 50 50 85 52 85 85 85 85 86 87 87 87 87 88 52 88 88 54 55 88 55 88 88 56 56
You’re My Dog, Dawg Published in 2013 by Welcome Books® An imprint of Welcome Enterprises, Inc. 6 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011 (212) 989-3200; Fax (212) 989-3205 www.welcomebooks.com Publisher: Lena Tabori President: H. Clark Wakabayashi Associate Publisher and Editor: Katrina Fried Designer: J.C. Suarès Design Assistant: Vince Joy Cover Design by Vince Joy Copyright © 2013 Welcome Enterprises, Inc. Text copyright © 2013 Donald Friedman Illustrations copyright © 2013 J.C. Suarès All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data: TK ISBN 978-1-59962-123-4 First Edition Printed in China 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the author and artist
Donald Friedman is the author of the awardwinning novel The Hand Before the Eye and the internationally praised and translated The Writer’s Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers. For more information or to contact him, visit his website: donaldfriedman.com. J.C. Suar s has designed, written, and illustrated more than one hundred books, including The Hollywood Dictionary, Art of the Times, Manhattan, Dogs in Love, Black and White Dogs, Hollywood Dogs, Fat Cats, Cool Mutts, Funny Dogs, and Funny Babies. His illustrations have appeared in the New Yorker, Time, and Variety.