The dog ate my homework book

There have been three different books that used the excuse as a title. Two have been collections of poetry for students with a school theme, and one has been a business book about lessons dogs can teach about accountability. Other books for young readers have had titles blaming aliens and the protagonist's teacher for the missing homework.

Young adult novelist Paula Danziger paid homage to it with the title of her 1974 debut, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit.

Lexicographer Barry Popik, who called it "the classic lame excuse that a student makes to a teacher to cover for missing homework", found citations in print increasing from 1976. During the next decade, personal computers became more common in American households and schools, and many students began writing papers with word processors.

The earliest known variation on the idea that written work might be adversely affected by the tendency of some dogs to chew on paper came in a 1905 issue of The Cambrian, a magazine for Welsh Americans. William ApMadoc, the journal's music critic, related an anecdote about a minister temporarily filling in at a country church in Wales.