Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a small, squalid (dwelling) place that resembles an ill-kept dog's kennel.

1687		J. Phillips [trans.] Cervantes Don Quixote 303: Thou dost very ill, Sancho, quo Don Quixote, to report, as thou dost, that I entic’d thee from thy Dog-hole of a Cottage, knowing that I left my own House at the same time, a Palace in comparison of thine.
1693		Dryden Juvenal III 47: You hire a darksom Doghole by the year.
1707		J. Dunton Bumography 52: From Dog-hole of Lodging one Morning I sally’d.
1818		H.B. Fearon Sketches of America 191: ‘The Fountain Inn’ is a miserable log-house, or what you would call a dog-hole.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 23 July n.p.: We [...] found ourselves in a dog hole of a place .
1825		Egan Life of an Actor 105: Is it for this wretched place [...] that I have left London? Is it in such a doghole as this that I can expect to realize any fame?
1847		[A. Harris] (con. 1820s) Settlers & Convicts 94: The wretched half-frantic women [...] staggered away to any doghole where they could find a temporary lurking-place to sleep.
1901		St James’ Gaz. (London) 21 Feb. 16/1: Poverty Row [...] The poor themselves now seem to be wakening up to the necessity of better abodes [...] judging by their ’dogholes’.

2. an unpleasant place, irrespective of size.

1755		Caldedonian Mercury 12 Aug. 1/2: I answered that I had never seen London. ‘Never seen it [...] Then you have never seen one of the finest sights [...] Paris is but a Dog-hole to it’.
1798		Chester Courant 25 Dec. 3/1: This execrable dog-hole of a city, is inhabited by a set of lazy wretches.

3. (UK Und.) a prison; a solitary-confinement cell.

1763

Derby Mercury 22 July 1/1: Clapping Dr Leighton in irons, the carried him [...] into Newgate, where they thrust him into a lonesome doghole full of Rats and Mice.