History Main / ADogAteMyHomework

* ComicStrip/{{Luann}}: In one series of strips, Luann is babysitting while writing a report that is due the next day. Unfortunately, the baby gets a hold of the report, rips it up, and feeds it to Luann's dog. When Luann tries to explain what happened to her teacher the next day, he just laughs his head off at Luann thinking she's trying the "a dog ate my homework" excuse.

* ''Series/{{MASH}}'': In a season 10 episode, Hawkeye gets in serious trouble because a goat ate the entire payroll (and, naturally, no one believes him; he is charged with stealing it). Later, Hawkeye is finally proved innocent when the goat subsequently eats a general's report on the issue. Seems sort of the same thing in spirit.

* ''VideoGame/AnotherCaseSolved'': The "Comic Calamities" case involves retrieving a rare comic book which, when the player character finds it, is missing a few pages. When you confront the artist about this he babbles "My hamster ate them! Really!"

** In an episode where Bart's teacher starts dating Ned Flanders and saw Santa's Little Helper, she asked Bart if that's the dog that eats his homework. Trying to convince her by giving the dog a homework for him to eat. The dog refuses. Bart then covers the homework with dog food. The dog ate the food, cleaned the paper and signaled the answer of a math question.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatACartoonShow'': One short has a cowboy telling his teacher his dog ate his homework. Obviously she doesn't believe him, but he tries to prove it by pulling out a dog chewing on a piece of loose-leaf paper. The teacher responds by lecturing him on bringing pets to class.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Catdog}}'': One episode is devoted to the citizens of Nearburg making Dog eat their homework, which Cat exploits for their money. However, when the big one comes where Dog must eat the Mayor's written speech before he speaks up front, he becomes sick from eating too much homework, and Cat is forced to eat it himself. This turns out to be a bad decision as the entire crowd finds the idea of a cat eating homework ludicrous and boo the Mayor off the stage (and into the clowning business).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewSchool'' has a variant where Yzma plans on forcing Kuzco to give this excuse, and even lampshades on its {{Dead Horse|Trope}} status:

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': Numbuh Five has a genuine problem of her homework getting eaten every day by a dog she passes by on the way to school. She has enough and decides to take the problem head on. Turns out that [[spoiler:it's a rival classmate who can morph into a weredog and eats Five's homework out of spite, and the teacher is in on it, too]]. And, even then, it's only because [[spoiler:Numbuh Five has been helping Numbuh Four with his homework (since he usually does poorly in school.]] This turns out to be useful for the KND because [[spoiler:it turns out that poorly-done homework actually makes weredogs sick.]]

* ''VideoGame/MathRescue'': A couple of word problems feature this. One plays this straight with the [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome logical consequence]] of the student having to redo their homework. The other turns it on its head by having the teacher's dog eat homework that said teacher was grading.

* ''Webcomic/{{Forestdale}}'': In a gambit to be excused from gym class, Izabell claims that her dalmatian friend Dallas ate her gym clothes with a fake letter from her mom as proof. Needless to say it doesn't work and Dallas calls her out on such blatant sterotyping.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': Some children's homework fell victim to the Alaskan Bullworm on the corresponding [[Recap/SpongebobSquarepantsS2E20SquidOnStrikeSandySpongeBobAndTheWorm episode]].

* Website/TheOtherWiki has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dog_ate_my_homework an article about this trope]]

Though this has become a DeadHorseTrope, and children rarely use this excuse seriously, the second variation on this trope is in fact TruthInTelevision. Many dogs do have a thing for paper, or are just {{Extreme Omnivore}}s.

* ''Literature/TheCatAteMyGymsuit'': The main character uses the title statement as one of her excuses for not participating in PE class.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8550820/1/Strange-Visitors-from-Another-Century Strange Visitors from Another Century]]'': One of Salazar Slytherin's students claims his pet bowtruckle ate his homework. Slytherin assigns him an essay on the importance of having a ready excuse.

* While filming ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'', Creator/StevenSpielberg literally had to fill out an insurance claim for one of the costumes with the words "dress eaten by elephant". It can almost be seen in the movie, during the campfire at night scene - the elephant's head is just out of frame as it's eating the dress in front of the entire crew, who are somehow not bursting into laughter.

* If you take a culinary class, this is a very real possibility. And it might not just be the dog. You might have to say: "My roommate ate my homework."

Basically, this is any child character explaining to his teacher why he hasn't done his homework. This will be either a lie, which may or may not be believed, or a CassandraTruth. If it is the latter, expect them to also bring in the evidence proving their case (such as moist bits from homework, or even the animal itself). The most common variant involves a dog, but other animals can be used as well.