After another guitar solo over the new progression, Gilmour sings a melismatic vocal with overdubbed harmonies from Richard Wright, ending with the lyric "So have a good drown/As you go down all alone/Dragged down by the stone", as the dissonant A/F leads back to Dm9.

The mesmeric middle section, in a slow, metronomic 6/4 time, is built upon several layers of synthesizers, sustaining the four chords of the main theme, with the sound of dogs barking processed through a vocoder and played as an instrument.

Gradually, a synthesizer solo emerges, and as it reaches its climax, the acoustic guitar returns, at the original tempo, once again lively and syncopated.

Originally sung over the tonic only, in the final recording the multiple harmonized guitars alternate between D minor and C major, while the bass further extends the harmony with a descending F, E, D, and C, creating the sense of an F sixth chord followed by C/E.

Fitting into the album's Orwellian concept of comparing human behaviour to various animals, "Dogs" concentrates on the aggressive, ruthlessly competitive world of business, describing a high-powered businessman.

Subsequent verses portray the emptiness of his existence catching up to him as he grows older, retiring to the south rich but unloved: "just another sad old man, all alone and dying of cancer", and drowning under the weight of a metaphorical stone.

The final verse explores a number of aspects of business life and how it compares to dogs, for example taking chances and being "trained not to spit in the fan", losing their individuality ("broken by trained personnel"), obeying their superiors ("fitted with collar and chain"), being rewarded for good behaviour ("given a pat on the back"), working harder than the other workers ("breaking away from the pack") and getting to know everyone but spending less time with family ("only a stranger at home").

Recommended by a friend of Waters named Joel Eaves, this line was personal to him as he was split from his family at infancy, being "broken away", as he put it.

[10]Equally difficult was for Gilmour or Waters to sing the song's highest part, "dragged down by the stone", in the original key, which would begin on the first B above middle C. As any recording of the early performances will attest, neither singer could quite reach and sustain it, even when attempting it together.

[11][12] The bootleg release From Abbey Road to Britannia Row: The Extraction Tapes (2014) includes a work-in-progress studio version of "Dogs."

The mesmeric synthesizer solo (with barking dog effects) is missing (accounting for the track's duration of just under 14 minutes, in contrast to the 17-minute version on Animals), and some of the lyrics are different, most notably in the closing "Who was..." verse.

Waters regularly performed the song on his In the Flesh Tour, with Jon Carin and Doyle Bramhall II replacing Gilmour on vocals and guitars, respectively.

Waters also performed the song to open the second set of his Us + Them Tour shows, with Dave Kilminster and Jonathan Wilson on guitars, and the latter on vocals.