junkyard dog

junkyard dog

An especially nasty, vicious, or savage person or animal (especially a dog). Of a person, often used in the phrase "meaner than a junkyard dog." Though he's always polite when he's in public, Tim's husband is meaner than a junkyard dog behind closed doors. That standard poodle may look cute and fluffy, but it's a junkyard dog, you can be sure about that.
See also: dog, junkyard
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • like talking to a wall
  • frog in a small pond
  • a big fish in a small pond
  • a big frog in a small pond
  • big fish in a small pond
  • big frog in a small pond
  • pond
  • change off
  • hanger-on
  • on (one's) person
References in periodicals archive
Most clients do not want to pay for their lawyer to bicker with other lawyers, and the clients who want the proverbial "junkyard dog" for a lawyer are, well, barking up the wrong tree.
Issa lost no time in claiming Waxman's mantle as the opposition "junkyard dog" snapping at the administration's heels.
Demo: The Story of a Junkyard Dog is an exuberant children's picturebook about a junkyard dog who tries to save his town from the excesses of its own rampant consumption.
Kershaw's Junkyard Dog is a handful of knife at a very good price.
All of which makes Junkyard Dog on Great Western Road stand out like a hangdog mongrel in a pack of carefully primped poodles.
Good grief, I'd rather watch BBC Parliament than be subjected to Sergeant Slaughter beating seven bells out of Junkyard Dog or another repeat of Frankenstein's Revenge.
It's common sense that it' a man buys a mean junkyard dog and that dog bites someone, the dog doesn't get sued--the purchaser gets sued!
Jeffers reprints the views of critics who saw the Il Duce of Gotham's politics as "a headstrong personality," whose "dictatorial use of the powers of the mayor were found in countless sources," and as a "tyrant, vindictive, and snarly as a Brooklyn junkyard dog," or as "scary as any of the gangsters in Lucky Luciano's mob" (382, 2).
Perhaps one of the last of his kind, Bob Nelson was considered by his staff at The Detroit News as the epitome of the hard-nosed, no-nonsense newspaper publisher -- so much so that he was known as the news department's "junkyard dog."
But behind that playful behavior lurks the ferocity of a junkyard dog, at least when it comes to males defending their territory from other male pupfish.
police state are expanded, according to an unnamed character high up in the national security bureaucracy, because "you can't fight a junkyard dog with ASPCA rules, you take your leash off of a bigger, meaner dog."
"This product has the power of a junkyard dog, guarding customers' privacy and helping control incoming calls," said Anne Kraus-Keenan, Verizon group manager of new product development.
One wonders about a possible descent from mythology's baddest junkyard dog, Cerberus, the triple-header who kept the riffraff away from Hades' portal.
If this happens, Tracy will be in his face like a junkyard dog!
-- When it comes to selecting a malpractice attorney, look for integrity, experience, and knowledge, but avoid the "junkyard dog" type, Daniel T.