Dog Eat Dog also featured an expanded role for Mitchell's bass-playing husband Larry Klein, who not only co-produced and played keyboards, but played a significant part in shaping the album's technological pop sound and also wrote the music for two of the songs.

[2] Reviewer William Ruhlmann wrote that Mitchell was “continuing to straddle the worlds of California folk/pop and jazz fusion".

[4] Lyrically, the album dealt with prominent issues in mid-1980s society, such as Reaganism, televangelists, consumerism and famine in Ethiopia.

"Good Friends" was recorded as a duet with Michael McDonald, Rod Steiger made a voiceover appearance on "Tax Free" as a televangelist, while Thomas Dolby and Bob "Zyg" Winard added humorous character vocal interjections to "Shiny Toys".

Some connections to Mitchell's past work are evident in the use of horns, and by appearances from James Taylor and saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

[12] Far Out echoed these sentiments, referring to Mitchell as a "disguised artist" on the album, which is "full of homogenised eighties sounds that can make a purist baulk".

"Shiny Toys" was also released in a 12" extended dance single format, remix by François Kevorkian, and had a more complete lyric than the album version, featuring additional spoken character voices by Thomas Dolby ("I LOVE being out on the golf course!").