This animal figures now and then in American talk and writing.
1840. One of those interesting animals, a yellow dog, with a bullet-hole through his breast.—Daily Pennant, St. Louis, April 20.
1845. See here, mister, you’ve got to go on with your show or give us a fight, and I’ll be durned if I don’t lick you sooner than Buck Harris’s yaller dog would lick a coon.—St. Louis Reveille, Oct. 6.
1848. Hackett’s whimsical direction to a Dutchman’s dwelling: ‘Go down dat road dere, till you comes to de barn close ’pon de house dat ’s always standin’ dere by dat little yaller dog!’—Knick. Mag., xxxii. 88 (July).
1848. A fellow once advertised that he had made a discovery, by which he could make a new man out of an old one, and have enough of the stuff left to make a little yellow dog.—Abraham Lincoln in the House of Repr., July 27: Cong. Globe, p. 1042, App.
1854. He said Wiggins war n’t so near straight on the licker question as his yaller dog at hum.—H. H. Riley, ‘Puddleford,’ p. 106 (N.Y.).
1878. Joe Tucker, a long, gauntlin’ mud-mummy, was slungin’ along the street with a long, lean yaller dog that allers followed him every-where.—J. H. Beadle, ‘Western Wilds,’ p. 184.
