Part of our changing times is the loss of much of what was once distinctly Australian in our speech.
I was thinking about pejorative terms earlier today (I know some people who warrant them) and I realised that we no longer use many of the colourful terms our fathers coined for us. Our language is becoming more international and more American every day. That is not the end of the world but it will be a shame if we lose too much of our more colourful and distinctly Australian speech.
I bought a book of Australian slang recently, and I was disappointed at the number of lovely, quirky expressions I've heard around the traps that were not included.
"Flat out like a lizard drinking" is one I like. A lizard does go flat out when drinking, not that we often see a lizard drinking.
"Stone the crows" is a great expression of surprise, all the better for being an impossibility – crows are among the smartest of birds. "Starve the flamin' lizards" has pretty much the same meaning and is delightfully off the wall.

At that point I realised that much of our slang uses animals as metaphors.
"That bloke's a dingo" or even a drongo – not sure where that came from but we do have birds called drongos and there is a good little story about the source of this one. We have birds called drongos, and some have really drongo names, like Spangled Drongo and Hair-Crested Drongo.
In the 1920s, I read, there was a horse called Drongo, apparently named after the Spangled Drongo, who was placed many times but never actually won a race. From there drongo became a noun, used for someone who is not very bright or who did silly things, or was simply not a success.
To call someone a dingo, or refer to them as a dingo is a dog of a different colour. A dingo is someone who does the wrong thing, usually underhandedly. That sounds like a terribly mixed metaphor, but let it pass.

Many are fairly plain and unimaginative, like "packed in like sardines" or "as timid as a mouse". Try a "fly on the wall" or as "slow as a snail". They lack colour, though "as slow as a wet week" has plenty. I remember a bloke who "spent a week in Orbost one wet afternoon".
To be as "mad as a cut snake" is to be really upset, as such a snake would be. I've heard it used to judge a man's odd behaviour, but that is incorrect. For him you might use "as mad as a meataxe" (no, I don't know) or "as mad as a March hare". He could even be a ratbag.
A person who does the wrong thing might well be "lower than a snake's belly" if the deed is bad enough. It is a very unequivocal label.
Rats have served us well as similes. To be a little bit cunning, perhaps not quite honestly, is to be "rat cunning'. Without the pejorative meaning, but close to it, is the description "as cunning as a woodheap rat." That really creates a picture, and if we are part of that language, aware of it, the meaning is not only clear but colourful.
Of course the thought police would not be happy for the rat, nor the person described, but that is their problem, not ours.

Some of the slang comes from particular circumstances but has widened in meaning. A "cockatoo" was the man posted to watch out for the police during illegal two-up games, but it now means lookout generally. It isn't used so much now, partly because we don't many illegal games of two-up.
Other wonderfully evocative expressions include "as lean as a drover's dog" and you are really a fair dinkum old time swaggie you might use 'skinny' instead of 'lean'. Another slang word which seems to involve a dog is "barking up the wrong tree". I have a dog that barks at possums and he does sometimes have the wrong tree. The possums move fast and are smarter than him.
We say "raining cats and dogs" and I have no idea why. If you know please contact me through the Gazette and ease my mind a little.
The humble dog has also given us "as crooked as a dog's hind leg". When I was an army recruit we were often told our line (the army makes you good at lining up) was "as crooked as a dog's hind leg". Again, I've heard it used to indicate crook behaviour but that is not really correct.

I like the vision inspired by some of these. "Like a cat on a hot tin roof" is used in other countries but this is the land of the corrugated iron roof and cat would be seen on such a roof in late January or early February. As a little smart-Alec (and who was Alec?) aside, cats are generally anxious to avoid climbing or walking on steel, probably because it offers no grip at all.
"Charging like a Mallee bull" is another good one, and it brings an image of a dangerous, large and ugly bull kicking up a fuss among the stunted trees of the Mallee. In fact it refers to the actions of a vendor whose prices are a lot on the high side.
There are many animal slang terms that we use but that are not terribly imaginative. "Slow as a snail", "busy as a bee", "slippery as an eel" or even "as snug as a bug in a rug" are okay but only just. They show no real imagination.

At least one more non-indigenous animal has provided a slang term or two. I mentioned cats, rats and bulls, but the sly old "tod" (even the Poms have trouble keeping their various languages sorted"). We say "fox-cunning" and "as cunning as a fox" without quite the same negative connotations as "rat cunning".
Even limiting this to sayings based on animals this could go on for a long time because all the above or the ones I've heard or can remember hearing, which is not quite the same thing. The "Australian Slang" book I bought seems to have none of these. I really should write to the authors but that might put a cat among the pigeons, or a fox in the chook house.
It is all good fun. Let's not lose all these colourful gems, especially the ones that speak to our imaginations. However, I still don't know why a dairy farmer is called a cocky.