My dogs are barking

My dogs are barking is an American idiom. We will examine the meaning of the common idiom my dogs are barking, where it came from, and some examples of its idiomatic usage in sentences.

My dogs are barking is a phrase that simply means my feet hurt. In this case, the word dogs means feet and the word barking means hurts. The expression my dogs are barking can be traced to journalist T. Dorgan, who worked for the New York Evening Journal. He coined many phrases, often using rhyming slang. Supposedly, the phrase dog meat became feet in this idiom. The term my dogs are barking was popularized throughout the world by American servicemen.

Examples

I wore Marco Rubio’s boots — and my dogs are barking (New York Daily News)

“My dogs are barking today,” actor John Candy says with almost palpable relief as he removes his shoes and socks in his airplane seat and rubs his feet, in a scene from the comedy movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”  (U.S. News)

The brand’s name comes from the saying ‘my dogs are barking’, meaning ‘my feet hurt’ (no, us neither – clearly a West Coast thing) and the collection addresses every fashionista’s big dilemma: what’s the cool alternative to the – yawn – ballet flat? (Marie Claire)