About

Got That Dog In Him is a catchphrase meant to describe a person, usually an athlete, who is mentally tough and able to perform in important situations. The term spread primarily in the sports world through much of the 2010s before other fandoms began picking up the phrase in the early 2020s.

Origin

"Got That Dog In Him" was first used as a lyric in George Clinton's 1982 hit single "Atomic Dog." The earliest known tweet to use the phrase was posted May 15th, 2009, by Twitter user @djparker25,^[1] who claimed late basketball star Kobe Bryant didn't have "that dog in him" because he was passing too much (shown below).

Throughout much of the 2010s, the phrase was used as a means of evaluating athletes' mental toughness. For example, in November of 2018, sports pundit Skip Bayless used the phrase to describe basketball player Jimmy Butler (shown below).

Spread

The phrase started seeing more humorous usage starting in the early 2020s, as sports fans joked about the phrase as a way to show it was essentially meaningless but still passed as insightful sports commentary. For example, on June 23rd, 2022, Twitter user @rodger^[2] joked that ESPN should have an analyst whose sole job is to judge whether a player has "that dog in him" (shown below, left). On March 18th, user @oeste^[3] joked that he would repeat "he's got that dog in him" while watching the year's college basketball championship tournament (shown below, right).

Also in 2022, it became more commonplace to pair the phrase with a photoshopped image of an X-rayed chest with a literal dog in it. For example, Twitter user @prince_thieves^[4] used such an image in a June 19th, 2022 tweet that gained over 110 retweets and 2,900 likes (shown below, left). The phrase also began growing more popular outside of the sports world. For example, on June 27th, Twitter user @SinfulBoredom^[5] used it to describe Goku's actions in a Dragon Ball episode (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References