go to the dogs

Verb

go to the dogs (third-person singular simple present goes to the dogs, present participle going to the dogs, simple past went to the dogs, past participle gone to the dogs)

1. (idiomatic, informal) To decline or deteriorate shockingly.
   • "[T]he merry old ways of good life have gone to the dogs—upon my carcase, they have!"1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter 42, in Far from the Madding Crowd
   • Poor devil, he's gone to the dogs altogether. He's got some twopenny-halfpenny job in the medical at Alexandria—sanitary officer or something like that. I'm told he lives with an ugly old Greek woman and has half a dozen scrofulous kids.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter L, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, page 264

   Synonyms:

   go to pot, go downhill, go to shit