keep a dog and bark oneself

keep a dog and bark oneself (third-person singular simple present keeps a dog and barks oneself, present participle keeping a dog and barking oneself, simple past and past participle kept a dog and barked oneself)

1. Alternative form of buy a dog and bark oneself
   • 2002, Daniel Yergin, Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Touchstone, →ISBN, page xxii:

     At Potsdam, Attlee was not at all bothered that trade-union leader Ernest Bevin, his new foreign minister, seemed to do all the talking while Attlee sat silent, wreathed in pipe smoke, nodding his head. “You don't keep a dog and bark yourself,” he explained, “and Ernie was a very good dog.”

   • 2006, Lucy Delap, Maria DiCenzo, Leila Ryan, Feminism and the Periodical Press, 1900-1918:

     Men, on the other hand, knowing their privileges safe in well-trained hands, can afford a tolerant attitude. Of what use to keep a dog and bark oneself? But let the dog show the faintest signs of negligence; let his “yap yap” become ever so little fainter, and instantly his alarmed master grasps the whip and prepares for fierce defence of his rights and property.

   • 2011, Margaret Kaine, Ribbon of Moonlight:

     I don't see why I should keep a dog and bark myself!” Sadie's voice was so shrill that Polly winced.