Dogs aren"t the prized, often
pampered, pets in other countries that they are in America. In the East they
are often considered pariahs and scavengers of the streets, and the Chinese,
Koreans, and Japanese, among other Asians, commonly eat them. Englishmen of
earlier times used dogs primarily for hunting and kept them outside or in a
crude shelter, not generally as house pets. The dogs were fed table scraps and
these they had to fight over. It didn"t seem much fun, a dog's life, and
Englishmen of the sixteenth century began to compare anyone who had become
impoverished, who was going to utter ruin naturally or morally, with their
maltreated canines. To lead a dog's life was to be bothered every
moment, never to be left in peace; to go to the dogs was to become just
like the helpless animals; and to die like a dog was to come to a
miserable, shameful end. There were many other similar phrases that arose
before the dogs had their day in England and America: throw it to the dogs,
to throw something away that's worthless; and, of course, a dirty dog, a
morally reprehensible or filthy person.