dogs barking

[Thunderbird+]

What on earth dose this mean when refering to tired/aching feet ?

[jno]

dogs' meat = feet; it means they're aching.

[Quizmonkey]

Slang but certainly not rhyming - it's American:

"You can credit America's youth and their love of counter-culture slang for the connection between the two seemingly unrelated words � "dogs" and "feet." According to Tom Dalzell, author of Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang (Merriam Webster, October 1996), it was during the Jazz Age of the 1920's that "dogs" was used as a noun to indicate feet. For example, "my dogs are barking" in 1920 speak translates to "my feet are hurting" in modern speak."

[jno]

on further investigation (in the Cassell dictionary of slang)... it says dogs was slang for shoes in the 1910s and rhyming slang for feet in the 1920s; barking dogs was US slang for sore feet in the 1920s. Not quite sure where this leaves us etymologically or geographically, but the meaning is clear enough.