[ti:Dog Talk]
[ar:Faith Lapidus]
[al:WORDS AND THEIR STORIES]
[by:51voa.com]
[00:00.00]www.51voa.com
[00:11.25]Now, the VOA Special English 
[00:14.34]program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
[00:17.38]Americans use many expressions 
[00:21.11]with the word dog.  
[00:23.60]People in the United States 
[00:25.84]love their dogs and treat them well. 
[00:28.62]They take their dogs for walks, 
[00:31.16]let them play outside 
[00:33.26]and give them good food and medical care. 
[00:37.24]However, dogs without owners 
[00:40.49]to care for them 
[00:41.93]lead a different kind of life. 
[00:44.49]The expression, 
[00:46.09]to lead a dog's life, 
[00:48.08]describes a person 
[00:49.67]who has an unhappy existence.
[00:52.76]Some people say we live
[00:56.24] in a dog-eat-dog world. 
[00:59.08]That means many people 
[01:01.47]are competing for the same things, 
[01:04.06]like good jobs. 
[01:06.25]They say that to be successful, 
[01:10.20]a person has to work like a dog. 
[01:13.33]This means they have to work very, 
[01:16.82]very hard. Such hard work 
[01:20.47]can make people dog-tired.
[01:23.16]And, the situation
[01:25.54] would be even worse 
[01:27.19]if they became sick as a dog.
[01:30.13]Still, people say 
[01:32.77]every dog has its day. 
[01:36.68]This means that every person 
[01:39.12]enjoys a successful period 
[01:41.83]during his or her life. 
[01:43.93]To be successful, people often 
[01:48.11]have to learn new skills. 
[01:50.30]Yet, some people say that you can 
[01:53.93]never teach an old dog new tricks. 
[01:57.13]They believe that older people 
[01:59.81]do not like to learn new things 
[02:02.50]and will not change the way 
[02:05.14]they do things.
[02:06.43]Some people are compared 
[02:09.92]to dogs in bad ways. 
[02:11.81]People who are unkind or uncaring 
[02:16.06]can be described as meaner 
[02:18.74]than a junkyard dog. 
[02:20.78]Junkyard dogs live in places 
[02:24.03]where people throw away things 
[02:26.62]they do not want. 
[02:27.97]Mean dogs are often used 
[02:31.25]to guard this property. 
[02:32.90]They bark or attack people 
[02:36.13]who try to enter the property. 
[02:38.82]However, sometimes a person 
[02:42.36]who appears to be mean 
[02:44.45]and threatening is really not so bad. 
[02:47.84]We say his bark is worse than his bite.
[02:52.54]A junkyard is not a fun place 
[02:57.27]for a dog. 
[02:58.18]Many dogs in the United States 
[03:01.12]sleep in safe little houses
[03:03.91] near their owners' home. 
[03:06.40]These doghouses provide shelter. 
[03:09.99]Yet they can be cold 
[03:12.49]and lonely in the winter.
[03:14.34]Husbands and wives 
[03:17.39]use this doghouse term 
[03:19.61]when they are angry at each other. 
[03:22.36]For example, a woman might 
[03:25.00]get angry at her husband 
[03:26.56]for coming home late 
[03:28.31]or forgetting their wedding anniversary. 
[03:31.70]She might tell him that 
[03:34.90]he is in the doghouse. 
[03:37.00]She may not treat him nicely 
[03:39.69]until he apologizes. However, 
[03:44.46]the husband may decide 
[03:45.90]that it is best to leave things alone 
[03:48.65]and not create more problems. 
[03:51.55]He might decide to let sleeping dogs lie.
[03:55.93]Dog expressions also are used 
[04:00.42]to describe the weather. 
[04:02.33]The dog days of summer 
[04:05.18]are the hottest days of the year. 
[04:07.93]A rainstorm may cool the weather. 
[04:11.62]But we do not want it to rain too hard. 
[04:15.12]We do not want it to rain cats and dogs.
[04:19.61](MUSIC)
[04:30.41]This VOA Special English program, 
[04:33.61]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, 
[04:36.32]was written by Jill Moss. 
[04:38.31]I'm Faith Lapidus.