Barking up the Wrong Tree
When we adopted our dog from the city family, she was scared of everything. Even though she was an adult, she wasn’t exposed to many wild animals. The first time she saw a mouse, the mouse attacked her! After a while she started acting more like a dog. She would attack any small wild animal on our farm. She loved chasing squirrels up trees. Sometimes we would see her barking (loud dog noises) at a tree. We knew it meant that she chased a squirrel up there. The funny part was when the squirrel jumped to another tree. If our dog didn’t see it, she would continue barking up the wrong tree.
As you can see, barking up the wrong tree relates to dogs making a mistake. Grammatically, the expression should say, “barking at the wrong tree.” However, as with most idioms phrase has been fixed over time. If you say that a dog is barking at the wrong tree, you are saying that there is literally a dog barking at a tree. If you say that a dog is barking up the wrong tree, you could be talking about a person.
The phrase barking up the wrong tree means to make an incorrect assumption. A lot of times the barking is people making an accusation. We also use the word barking to describe someone yelling. For example, in the army, the instructors usually bark orders to the soldiers.
Example: She thinks I stole her cookie but I didn’t do that. She is barking up the wrong tree.
Usually the person making the accusation / assumption is wasting their time because of their belief. The phrase is a way to let them know they have the wrong idea. The phrase can also be applied to situations where someone made a wrong choice or is doing something the wrong way.
Example: He just asked me out on a date, but I am gay and not interested. I had to tell him he’s barking up the wrong tree.
Barking up the wrong tree first appears in print in 1832 in a novel called Westward Ho! By James Kirk Pauling. The phrase was already being used idiomatically which suggests that this phrase was already in common use at the time. The phrase comes from hunting dogs chasing prey up a tree and barking, even if the prey has moved to another tree. It’s just like my dog.
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Reference:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/korean/features/the-english-we-speak/ep-180319
https://www.theidioms.com/bark-up-the-wrong-tree/
https://www.wise-geek.com/where-did-the-phrase-barking-up-the-wrong-tree-originate.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barking_up_the_wrong_tree