The only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was Crab in
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The Bard may have been a cat person,
but he managed to contribute to the canine lexicon: the word watchdog
is first found in The Tempest: "The watch-dogs bark'" (act
1, scene 2).
"Talks as familiarly of roaring Lions as maids of thirteen do of
puppy-dogs!" (King John, act 2, scene 1)
"France is a dog-hole. (All's Well That Ends Well, act 2,
scene 3)
"My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind; So flew'd, so sanded;
their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew:' (A
Mid Summer Night's Dream, act 4, scene 1)
"I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, than such a one:'
(Julius Caesar, act 4, scene 3)
"The Little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart-see, they bark
at me:' (King Lear, act 3, scene 5)
"Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? . , , And the
creature run from the cur, There thou mightst behold the great image of
authority-a dog's obeyed in office," (King Lear, act 4, scene 5)
""When night dogs run all sorts of deer are chas'd:' (The Merry
Wives 0/ Windsor, act 5, scene 5)
"Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs:' (The Merry Wives
o/Windsor, act 2, scene 1)
"Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth:' (The Comedy of
Errors, act 5, scene 1)
"Thou cau'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause:' (The Merchant of
Venice, act 3, scene 3)
"But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs," (The Merchant of
Venice, act 3, scene 3)
"Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!" (King Richard the Second,
act 3, scene 2)
"They call'd us for our fierceness English dogs," IKing Henry the
Sixth, act 1, scene 5)
"Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war," {Julius Ceasar, act
3, scene 1)
"The cat will mew and dog will have his day." (Hamlet, act 5,
scene 1)
"Thou hadst been better have been born a dog." (Othello, act
3, scene 30
