pavement special

English

Noun

pavement special (plural pavement specials)

1. (slang) A dog of miscellaneous ancestry; a mutt.

   Synonym: Heinz 57

   • 2001, Raymond Coppinger, Lorna Coppinger, Dogs, page 69:

     When I ask about these dogs, they are described to me as the local mutts, mongrels, pavement specials, crossbreeds.

   • 2011, Eckart Schumann, Patterns of Change, page 29:

     Two smaller pavement specials ranged alongside, and made up for size by their barking.

   • 2013, Resh Ramlakan, Fur Kids, page 11:

     In Park Rynie, down the south coast in Kwa Zulu Natal, where I had grown up, we only saw and heard of people keeping Alsatians, Rottweilers, Labradors, poodles, and the common pavement specials. My knowledge of dogs was actually pathetic, but the subject had never interested me.