Example usage:
"Jim, that shipment was supposed to go out thirty minutes ago, quit fucking the dog!"
or
"Hey what are you up to right now?"
"Oh, nothing, just fucking the dog."
or
"Isabelle hardly gets anything done, she's a real dog fucker."
or
"My manager at work just fucks the dog all day, I have never seen him do anything useful."
Not American but I use it on occasion. Definitely was weirded out a bit when I first heard it, now I think it's one of the funnier things to become a common idiom
The look on my yankee wife's face when she first heard me say it lmao
The wiki link says it came from Canada, so I guess it makes sense I'm used to hearing it.
I've only ever heard it used like "they screwed up bad" and not like "they were loitering"
My country has a version of that, we say “shat the bed”, as in “the Chiefs really shat the bed in the Super Bowl”
Not the same. Us humble peasants from Soviet Canuckistan also say "shat the bed", but that tends to indicate that somebody fucked up badly.
Fucking the dog, on the other hand, is the act of doing nothing when you're probably supposed to be doing something.
Really? I thought screwed the pooch was also “fucking up in a major way”
Weirdly enough it does seem to get used that way where fucking the dog is used for wasting time or lazing around. Not sure why.
from the Northeast, can't say I've ever heard this. "Screwed the pooch" means someone made a huge mistake, but never heard it (or fuck the dog) to mean wasting time. Completely possible it's more prevalent in the South or Midwest.
'slacker' is prolly the identical phrase. No way in hell would an office worker use something like 'fuck the dog' as that'll be a trip to HR
I'm Canadian but I use it from time to time. I also say "seducing Rover" or "making puppies" when I'm in mixed company.
as a tank, I say "fucked the dog", but I use it the same way I use "shit the bed". but "screwed the pooch" is way more common.
I just used "fucked the dog" yesterday when describing the situation in texas. i.e. "man they really fucked the dog on this."
Shit the bed is a bit more common than screwed the pooch in my experience
no edit: curses! you've entrapped me into doxxing myself. Well played, [honorific] fed.
