Cleveland touted one of the strongest secondaries in the league with Hanford Dixon and All-Pro cornerback Frank Minnifield, but the defensive line lacked the same firepower. Dixon and Minnifield wanted to do all they could to help their defensive teammates. So, Dixon pulled from his experiences from growing up in Theordore, Ala., remembering from his childhood how the dogs used to chase the cats.
“What we did was the dogs were originally for the defensive line, because what we told them, ‘Hey, we’re going to bark at you. And when we bark at, you guys think of that quarterback as a cat. You guys are going to be the dogs, and you just run it back and just let it go,'” Dixon said. “So, we started barking at them.”
Yet, the barking didn’t stop with the secondary. Due to the close quarters of fans around the perimeter of the fields at training camp at Lakeland Community College, fans heard the barking. And they joined in.
“Before we knew it, it wasn’t for the defensive line anymore,” Dixon said. “It was the whole defense. The whole team was the Dawgs and can’t believe that the Dawg Pound is still going strong today.”