This is not a normal expression for describing a dog. More context would help. My theory is: There is an expression in English, "everything but the kitchen sink." It means an enormous variety. For example, if you made a dish containing 45 different ingredients, you could say it had everything but the kitchen sink. So, I think the book may be saying that the dog is a mixture of many breeds, also knows as a 'mutt'.

Kristen has given you a good explanation. ‘Kitchen sink’ refers to the everyday lives of ordinary people, so in this case it means the type of dogs they own. It’s not a good way to describe the dogs - it would have been better to say ‘common or garden’ dogs, meaning ordinary, not distinctive, or ‘mongrel’, which means dogs which are cross-bred i.e. not of a well-defined breed. N.B. It’s nothing to do with washing them in the kitchen sink !

I have never heard of this description for a dog before. Could you maybe write down the paragraph where this description happened? It could help give context to what the author meant, and therefore you might get a more accurate answer.

Hi cyanstar, I agree. I think dogs that can be washed in a kitchen sink. Depending on your kitchen sink size though, it could be anything from sausage dogs to pugs and small Rottweilers!

I would guess it’s small dogs that can fit in kitchen sinks. (Chihuahuas etc…).