Sick as a What?

As we've noted previously, I've been a bit ill for the past few days. The phrase "sick as a dog" reverberates through my head. And yet, I live with two dogs. Kriston's rat-killer and Spencer's floor-urinator and I have to say that they don't seem to get sick ever. I mean, obviously I know that dogs develop serious health problems and eventually die, but they seem relatively free of maladies like the flu or the common cold. I can even see why this might be: You tend not to see large numbers of dogs congregating in close quarters, dogs never stay out drinking later than they should for a few nights in a row and gut their immune system, dogs tend to maintain a nice, stable diet, etc. Plus dogs -- even very well-loved dogs -- don't usually get nearly the level of medical attention that we give to people so the evolutionary pressures toward general good health are more serious.

So then: Where does this phrase come from? Also, I swear to God that when I quit smoking I was promised fewer respiratory ailments. And I only rarely even had any respiratory ailments. I feel that the medical establishment has really betrayed me here.

Comments

goes along with the saying "Worked like a dog". Every dog I've ever known doesn't work that hard at all....or "it's a dog's life"...when's the last time you spent the day running around the backyard, roaming from room to room, sleeping, eating and licking your chops? A dog's life indeed.

Posted by gvtv | February 27, 2007 6:39 PM

Dogs used to be viewed as the most despicably low members of the social order, below even knaves and villeins. As evidence, check out all the anti-canine rhetoric in "King Lear."

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 27, 2007 6:48 PM

Quitting smoking is the worst thing you can do. You have to build up a resistance to cancer. Everybody knows that.

Posted by Kiril | February 27, 2007 6:48 PM

One answer is here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sic1.htm.

However, my graduate advisor wrote a book on petkeeping in America. If I remember her argument correctly, dogs used to have more freedom to roam in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This greater freedom and lack of vet care meant that diseases such as rabies and distemper were much more common than they are now. Neither disease is especially pretty. Hence the term, "mad dog."

The book can be bought at Amazon if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Pets-America-Katherine-C-Grier/dp/0807829900/sr=1-5/qid=1172620087/ref=sr_1_5/002-0417939-9485663?ie=UTF8&s=books

Posted by chris | February 27, 2007 6:49 PM

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Proverbs 26:11

Posted by ploeg | February 27, 2007 7:21 PM

Your roommates' dogs don't get sick, or they don't whine about it?

Posted by epistemology | February 27, 2007 7:21 PM

I too have been "sick as a dog" (and yes, my 2 Bassets are quite healthy, thank you) for the past week and a half with an exceptionally nasty URI, probably a similar bug to yours. I've had hundreds of these throughout my life, and I NEVER smoked! So there.

Posted by beckya57 | February 27, 2007 7:33 PM

These animals lick their balls all day long and sniff each other's butt, and you don't know what "sick as a dog" means?

Posted by jerry | February 27, 2007 7:49 PM

You used to smoke? What a dipshit.

Posted by jerry | February 27, 2007 7:50 PM

and we all lived together in a bloggy home...

Posted by Freddie | February 27, 2007 7:54 PM

So is Spencer the wife and Kriston Alice?

Posted by The Bloggy Bunch | February 27, 2007 8:06 PM

I've no idea on the "sick as a dog" thing, but I will point out that it will take you maybe a couple of years to get enough tar out of your lungs to get the fewer respiratory ailments benefit. It's amazing how long that crap stays around.

Oh, and get a flu shot.

Posted by mw | February 27, 2007 8:06 PM

"You used to smoke? What a dipshit."

Yeah. Quitter.

By the way, this "jerry" fellow isn't very polite to the guests or the proprieter of this here bloggy thing.

Posted by too many steves | February 27, 2007 8:07 PM

Ever seen a dog with mange? That's probably the root of the expression.

Posted by Kevin Meyer | February 27, 2007 8:10 PM

Oh! I'm sorry I was impolite and rude for calling you a dipshit because you used to smoke.

Can you enumerate those smoking benefits for me? Maybe I will start smoking. Start with the one where your breath smells like death and makes you a better kisser.

Posted by jerry | February 27, 2007 8:27 PM

Seriously though, congratulations for stopping smoking. (Flip flopper.) Just stay off the damned things.

Does explain why a) you hate trees as you are an enemy of fresh air, and b) why you favor universal health care since you now crave the taxpayer to bail you out from your stupid yute.

(I favor universal health care too, but I love trees unlike you.)

Posted by jerry | February 27, 2007 8:33 PM

I had two labrador retrievers (which I still dream about more than 15 years after they passed to doggy heaven), and I testify that a dog can get a cold!

One of the labs, when still a puppy, got a head cold. He would start sneezing and send a volley of nose muck across the room like cannon balls out of 18th century cannon. Since they can't blow their nose, the sneeze was the only solution to clearing things up - but dogs do most of their breathing through their mouth.

He never complained though, and I never heard him say he was as sick as a man.

Posted by JimPortlandOR | February 27, 2007 8:43 PM

you really should add about 10g glutamine supplements to your diet - very good for the immune system. Wouldn't hurt you to get to the gym either

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | February 27, 2007 8:56 PM

You must have been around indoor dogs all your life. Sad.

Outdoor dogs, when they are not having the time of their life, often get sick, vomit, eat a lot of grass, vomit some more, get runny diarrhea and sneeze a lot.

Still having a a big yard with a couple of muts in it is the only decent way to be a dog owner.

Posted by ken | February 27, 2007 9:14 PM

If you're not happy being as sick as a dog, alternative idioms include being as sick as a cat, a parrot, and even a horse (which is apparently specific to being sick but not vomiting). Along similar lines, I've sometimes wondered about the phrase "sweating like a pig", since pigs don't sweat, and "eating like a bird", since birds can eat a few times their body weight in a single day. Oh, well, it's beyond me; I'll continue to hide my head in the sand like an ostrich.

Posted by RSA | February 27, 2007 9:25 PM

you really should add about 10g glutamine supplements to your diet - very good for the immune system

Hmm. Citation, please. Also, Matt does go to the gym.

Posted by tom | February 27, 2007 9:28 PM

Can you enumerate those smoking benefits for me? Maybe I will start smoking.

Smoking calms you down and helps you be less of an ass when dealing with other people. So yes, maybe you should start smoking.

Posted by michesmith | February 27, 2007 10:17 PM

I'm sorry michesmith, you failed to follow the directions. Perhaps you need a cigarette and then you can reread them and try again.

Posted by jerry | February 27, 2007 10:54 PM

congrats on quitting smoking. do you have any tips for me?

Posted by barack obama | February 27, 2007 11:10 PM

Stop seeing amateurs

Serious physicians never talk down cigarettes. They're our job security. I would always thank my still-smoking patients for the sacrifice they were making on my behalf. But cigarettes are so good for us precisely because the damage they do is mostly chronic, not short-term. They are one of those gifts that keep on giving.

Certainly no one should have promised you any significant short-term health benefits for yourself, or decreased fees for themselves, from smoking cessation. Less chance of premature heart disease, almost no chance of lung cancer, much less chance of chronic bronchitis, yes, but you weren't going to get any of these things anyway for decades. Perhaps, if you have asthma, you would have an excellent chance of at least some improvement within weeks of quitting, but no one had any business promising you that you would get fewer Upper Respiratory Infections within the next year. It's really the mark of an amateur to make predictions that can be refuted within a year.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | February 28, 2007 12:38 AM

First of all, dogs do get sick. It's just that they can't talk, so you don't hear them complain. I once had a dog who didn't move from a spot for about 14 hours (and therefore indicated that he was sick). He then got up and was back to normal. It was only when he died six months later that I realized that the not moving was the first manifestation of his cancer.

On the other hand, have you noticed that dogs almost never blink?

As far as quitting smoking goes, your body right away starts trying to repair that damage, so you can (in the short term) expect more respitory infections. When I quit, I immediately came down with almost fatal pneumonia.

Posted by Samba00 | February 28, 2007 1:18 AM

Samba beat me to pointing out that dogs just complain less, but I have to say my golden retriever blinks regularly, especially when she is exhausted from having been awake for over 10 minutes. What really creeps me out is when she winks at me.

Posted by aleks | February 28, 2007 1:36 AM

dogs never stay out drinking later than they should for a few nights in a row

Depends on what you mean by 'dog,' dog.

Posted by live | February 28, 2007 5:49 AM

If you've ever spent time in an underdeveloped country (which, of course, they all used to be) the origin of the phrase seems pretty obvious.

Posted by MikeN | February 28, 2007 6:40 AM

Quit doggin' it, and get back to working like a dog!

Posted by rea | February 28, 2007 6:57 AM

I can't do anything about jerry's manners, but I can inform him that smokers actually put less strain on the government in health care and Social Security costs.

Anyway, I know I said a couple threads down that I'm a non-smoker who wants a smoking president, but that might not last. This jerry guy is really making me want a cigarette.

Posted by too many steves | February 28, 2007 10:45 AM

"First of all, dogs do get sick. It's just that they can't talk, so you don't hear them complain."

My dad was a veterinarian and he used to say that any idiot could be a doctor, their patients tell them what's wrong.

Smoking and colds/flus:
Ancedotally, I'm not sure it makes that much difference. My wife and I both smoke and she gets sick a lot more than I do. My best friend growing up's parents both smoked constantly indoors, though, and they all seemed to get sick a lot.

I only smoke outside or in bars, so maybe that's the healthfulness.

Posted by witless chum | February 28, 2007 11:03 AM

I can't do anything about jerry's manners, but I can inform him that smokers actually put less strain on the government in health care and Social Security costs.

Is that because they die younger or something? Citation please and an explanation.

This jerry guy is really making me want a cigarette.

It's a free country d00d, go for it:

http://www.tobaccofacts.org/photos/holeinthroat.jpg

Posted by jerry | February 28, 2007 2:13 PM

Hmm, so relaxing!

Chemicals in a cigarette

Posted by jerry | February 28, 2007 2:17 PM

jerry,

Here's an abstract of the paper:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=227498

If I get started smoking heavily now, maybe someday I can smoke one in my mouth and one out of that hole in my throat. I'll be way more popular at parties than jerry and his attitude.

Posted by too many steves | February 28, 2007 2:40 PM

maybe someday I can smoke one in my mouth and one out of that hole in my throat.

Cool, when you do that let me know and I'll invite you over to some of our parties. Our last village idiot drowned in his own spittle.

Posted by jerry | February 28, 2007 3:00 PM

Yeah, it's the old bullshit about them dying younger and contributing to SSA and never collecting it. Like duh, if someone contributes and never collects, SSA is better off.

The abstract says nothing about health care costs.

I have a better solution that I am sure you'll like that will fix SSA right up. Just kill people on their last day of work.

Posted by jerry | February 28, 2007 3:04 PM