Working Like a Dog
In another blog post, I mentioned some expressions that included cats, but that didn’t actually have anything to do with cats. The same is true for dogs. In fact, there are a lot of expressions that mention dogs that may or may not have anything to do with dogs.
For example, if someone is working very, very hard, you may say that he or she is working like a dog. Are dogs known for working hard? I’m not sure. One thing I do know is that Jeff works like a dog to produce podcasts each week.
Other expressions that mention dogs make a little more sense. If you want to leave things alone, to not bother someone or something because you are afraid of a bad result, you can say that you want to let sleeping dogs lie. If a dog is sleeping, you may not want to bother it because if it wakes up, it may bark or bite. (Lie, in this case, means to recline your body so that it is straight (not sitting or standing).) So you may hear a conversation like this one:
Lucy: When will the boss give us a raise (more money for working)? I’m going to ask her.
Jeff: If I were you, I would let sleeping dogs lie. With this bad economy, we are just as likely to get a pay cut (reduction) as a pay raise!
Here’s another that makes some sense. If you want people to stop attacking or criticizing you, you can say, “Call off the dogs!” To call off means to stop or to cancel something. If one presidential candidate (someone who is officially trying to become the next president) criticizes the other for his/her past decisions, he/she might say, “Call off the dogs or we will start talking to the media about your family and your personal life.”
There are other dog-related expressions, but I don’t want to make the cat-lovers jealous.
~ Lucy
September 9th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Nice expressions! “to let sleeping dogs lie” is my favorite.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Oh, Lucy, Unfortunately I’m a cat lover!! lol I live dogs too though. Yeah, If we don’t want to get any trouble, we shouldn’t wake sleeping dogs up!
September 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Here’s another expression that include cats and dogs:If it’s raining very hard you may say “It’s raining cats and dogs”
September 9th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Hi Lucy,
Sorry,I have never understood why you call a sandwich…a HotDog!
Osman
September 9th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Hi everyone!
I don’t know what will happen with you when you say these expressions but in my country, if i say “you are working like a dog”, maybe they will give me an attack (i only thinks so). it seems that these expressions are mean “you’re like a dog” if you have not read this blog yet. So make sure your friends know the meanings of these expressions before you talk to them. ^_^
September 9th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Another interesting one is `dog in the manger`.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Hi nguyenlam (and everyone else)! In my city (Hong Kong) the expression “you are working like a dog” has negative implications as well. It means you are working hard on unimportant things with no one respects you. We say “you are as hard working as a cow” to praise someone who is persistant and hardworking, but in other cultures it may be an insult if you describe someone as a cow. Expressions are always cultural specific, and it is why it is so interesting!
September 9th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Hi there,
here we say you are working like a donkey instead of like a dog
September 9th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I read once the expression “it’s a dog’s life”. If I’m not wrong this means “It’s an easy life”. It’s curious for me because in my tongue (Catalan) a dog’s life it’s a bad/hard life… This expression would be a kind of “false friend”
September 10th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Hi every body,
I want just to say, in my language ( persian or farsi ), the expression ” working like a dog”, used exactly with word to word translation as the same meaning.:)
September 10th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Hi there!!
I’m from Brazil and I have to say thank you guys for the great job you’re doing. It’s really helpfull…My favorite one is working like a dog, although all of them are pretty funny, but I do like that one “Eating like a horse and drinking like a fish”. Need say a word??Lol!!!
Best wishes
September 10th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Thanks a million Lucy, I like very much this teaching and the example you did it is very real. Just now my daughter Fátima is working like a dog because she works all days of the week. She wants to save money as she is going to have a flat and I suppose she wants to buy furniture and so on.
But here in Spain when we say “don’t be like a dog” we are telling someone just the contrary, that he or she is not working propperly because a dog is usually lying on the floor just doing nothing, same as a person that doesn’t work.
I like very very much the two expresions: “Call off the dogs” and “let sleeping dogs lie” but why the plural?. Sure there is not reason.
Thanks again.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
soraia wrote:
> here we say you are working like a donkey instead of like a dog
In Russia we say `working like a horse`
September 10th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Very nice job. But I think to say someone is working like a dog is rather not nice, as wrote smallpig (but I’m from Poland). I like expression to let sleeping dogs lie - is very funny.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Yes, I don’t know where Soraia is from, but here in Spain we say just the same…..to work as a donkey, is to work too much.
But in Russia “working like a horse” may be the same use like here and it is because they use horses in the past to do same work that donkeys did
in Spain many years ago.
Now here donkey is an animal that we have to care about because they are disappearing from our life and it is really a pity as they
did a lot of work for us humans.
September 11th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I like the expresions,so i write it on my blog in chinese.in fact,”working like a dog”is not welcome in china, i know what you say,but when i translate it in chinese ,i thinks i should use cow instead of dog.
by rukee
http://hi.baidu.com/gaoruzheng/blog
September 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Is the expression “It´s raining cats and dogs” stilll used in English or is it old fashioned?
September 11th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Well,doing a little research I found this:The expression “It’s raining cats and dogs”is very old and is linked to the ancient beliefs of sailors and also to the Norse mythology.Cats were associated with heavy rain and dogs with storms and wind.Therefore,this expression was used to refer to severe rainstorms.But nowadays it has become old-fashioned.
How interesting,I must confess I didn’t know that.
September 11th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Thanks Lucy, Is it polite to say s/he is working like dog, I mean can you use it in formal conversation or can you say it to your boss, because in my language we have same thing but it doesn’t consider very polite.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:52 am
Thanks lucy,
Here in Egypt we say “he’s working like a donkey” since “dog” implies bad meaning in our culture. Interestingly enough, we believe that the donkey is the stupidist animal in the world.
September 13th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Dr . Tse
Thanks for the explaintions . . but if i said that here in my country that would not be polite at all . . because ( Dog ) is kind of cursing somebody . . something like that . .
I mean it’s not good to say it but in english language i don’t know excatly . . so if you can tell us more expressions an’ more about these phrases we’ll be grateful . .
I want to ask if this expression is common or informal . .
Again thanks for everything you do, Doc . . by the way I love your scripts . .
All my love
F J . .
September 13th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Hey Lucy!
In my country Iran we use dis expression alot, the other use of this sentence is “He is lying like a dog” but this is so informal and just used among friends.
September 14th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Interesting observation showed by rukee. Here this expression is also common.
September 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I guess we are talking about american english and american culture so….
September 14th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Dear all,
It is just paradise reading Dr. Luct Tse! Thank you Doctor. And it is wonderful reading the answers of different people from diffrent countries and cultures. I live in São Paulo, Brazil, and “work as a horse” or work as a donkey (a very good animal for transportation of heavy cargos) -OK. But “work as a cow” - mainly if it is directed to a woman - it is not nice, as a matter of fact it is rather rude. Be careful, those ones who do not know brazilian culture!. When you visit Brazil try not to use the following animals names in suc expressions - with women: cow, hen, chickens, and that fish it is a voracious fish. In portuguese the name of the fish is “piranha”. I don’t know in English. Some women may even slap the author of the sentence, or, who knows, reminds him or her about his or her mother, sisters, nieces, female cousins, grand-mothers, aso. I am laughing, Depending on the moment, depending on the tone of voice, depending on how much aspirits, beverages, there will sure be physical violence among everybody. In the end I have to say that it is interesting watching brothers, uncles, fathers defending the honor of a possibly insulted woman. I mean, everybody is considered “civilized” people. Bye, bye , my dear friends.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Concerning the expression “It’s raining cats and dogs” in France we say “It’s a dog weather”
September 15th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
My god!!!!!!! thanks a lot Lucy for the important explanation.
if some body could encourage me by saying that I am working like a dog,
I would be so upset. because, in my country( Ethiopia) working like a dog means being so lazy.
when some body can do nothing. Isn’t amazinng?
September 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Many many thanks to lucy. I think expressions and proverbs are coming from cultures and languages and may have different burden of meaning in different countries with different cultures. Also they change with time and new ones are coming and some old ones are going, but some of them become permanent. This expression, working like a dog, is among old ones and is related to the times that dogs were working. Nowadays, dogs in the US do not do anything. They just eat and lye down on the floor and actually, they are so lazy.
In my counrty, Iran, donkey is the symbol of hard working, and also, stupidity. So, if we say “Sombody is working like a donkey, that means he/she is a hard worker, and, if we say somebody is like a donkey that means that he/she is stupid, but both have a negative impression, the second one more.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Here in Spain we often use “working like a chinese” (even most of the chinese inmigrants do, with a great sense of humor) and in my province (province = sort of a state) we say “working like a preacher” for not to work at all. Obviously preachers don’t use this idiom.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I meant we use “working like a chinese” as a synonimous of “working like a dog” and not for “not to work”, in case I haven’t been clear enough
September 16th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
To answer a couple of your questions:
“Working like a dog” is an informal expression, but it has neutral (not good nor bad) or good associations, so you can use it even with your boss. For example:
Boss: When will you be finished with the report?
Employee: I’m working like a dog on it right now and should have it on your desk by the end of the day.
“Raining cats and dogs” is an older expression and we don’t hear it too often in everyday conversations. However, I still hear it once in a while and everybody knows what it means.
Thanks to everyone for their interesting comments!
September 16th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
My quetion is the same Emiliano: ” “Call off the dogs” and “let sleeping dogs lie” but why the plural?. Anybody can help me to explain??? Thanks in advance so much.
September 17th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I don’t know why it’s “dogs” and not “dog.” Like most idioms, there isn’t a clear or obvious explanation. Perhaps if we look at their derivation (history of where they come from and how they developed), we may find out. But I don’t know the derivation of these idioms, unfortunately.
~ Lucy
September 17th, 2008 at 8:44 am
It´s raining Cats and Dogs! My teacher show me this expression last year, it´s a nice expression to say that it´s raining a lot (very, very much).
I hope that somebody can explain me the mening of these expressions -> “Call off the dogs” and “let sleeping dogs lie”
September 17th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I love let sleeping lie.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Going on with dogs, it is usual here in spain to say: “it is a dog’s day” or “I have a dog’s day”. The first just to say that the weather is very bad, cold, wendy or to much
rain. But the second is used just to say that the day was unfortunately, very busy or with a lot of unpleasant incidents as lossing the bus, or the underground, going later to the work, quarreling with the boss or some other fellow, and so on. This last one should be “a dog’s day” and I do not know why the expression as dogs don’t have usually so bad similar days like we use to have too often.
Of course these two expressions are absolutely normals and you may use them in good speaking with everybody, your boss, wife, husband, friends or mother in law.
Thanks Lucy again for your explanations.