. . . what do you assume about the person in question?
Crap I mean to post a poll but messed it up. Just post your answers below please. 
A guy who’ll try to steal another guy’s woman.
In the UK I’ve heard “black chicken” to mean the same thing.
I’ve never heard the phrase, but I would guess it to mean something about his sexual habits, and not too complimentary. A guy looking to get laid (who may or may not be successful at it), probably often and with different women, who doesn’t respect a one of 'em.
Am I close?
I’ll post the answer later. I just want to see what the majority of people say first, since I just had a disagreement with someone over what this phrase usually means.
I’ve always heard it this way.
“He is a bird dog” = He is overtly interested in other women, more brazenly than usual, but isn’t particularly aggessive about it. He points like a bird dog.
“He is a hound dog” = He is always agressively sniffing around other women. More agressive about it than a bird dog, who only points for the most part.
To the best of my memory the only reference to “bird dog” as it relates to women is from the Everly Brothers song. There it would suggest somebody skulking around and meddling with another male’s girl friend.
IIRC the line is “Hey, Bird Dog, get away from my quail…”
The only other usage even close is “that dog won’t hunt…” and that has little if anything to do with female friends.
Wow, when I was selling cars, a bird dog was someone who brings you a lead or a tip for a sale.
I only know it from the song, where he’s “a joker that’s a’tryin’ to steal my honey.” Can’t say I’ve ever actually heard someone say it in conversation.
Someone who will actively try to steal another guy’s woman, often a friend’s woman. We also used the verb “bird dogging” in college, as in “Slick is totally bird dogging the Cheese” meaning that Slick is currently hitting on the Cheese’s woman.
I’ve never heard the term used as meaning “philanderer”–that’s usually “hound dog” in my experience.
I did use the term “bird-dogging” anthropomorphically in a paper I wrote once. My intended meaning was “doing reconnaissance”, specifically flushing Blacks and Republican leaders out of buildings during the NYC draft riots of 1863.
I just couldn’t leave well enough alone:
Everly Brothers: Bird Dog Lyrics
The Everly Brothers - Birddog
Without reading any other replies, I think of a spy.
I believe that the current term is “ass bandit.”
Since I haven’t heard the phrase before, I guess I would think the person saying it misspoke, and either meant a “hound dog” or “bull dog”, the latter of which is equivalent to “pit bull”. So I would probably be wrong.
I have heard it two ways - one, as in the Everly Brothers song - a girlfriend stealer.
Second, as a speeder to follow on a highway - he’s flushing out the cops, so you can safely speed a quarter mile behind him until he gets pulled over.
He has a soft mouth, and possibly webbed feet.
I’d have no idea, never heard the phrase.
Back in the days when I worked in a Telco switching control center, we called techs “bird dogs” when they hunted down and fixed a particularly pesky hardware or software trouble.
I’ve never heard the phrase, so all I’d assume is that you’re talking about a dog that is of a breed that was bred to hunt birds.
Really? That’d mean ‘gay man’ to me.
Women have asses too!