Dag

"Well, look at the hero! You thought you could come into my den! Now why don't you lay there and watch while we eat your friends."

- Dag threatening Otis.

Dag is the main antagonist of Nickelodeon's 8th animated feature film Barnyard. He is Otis' arch-nemesis and the coyotes' leader and boss.

Dag is a scrawny red coyote with sharp fangs and claws. He has a slight scar on his left eye and two notches on his left ear. He is extremely skinny with his ribcages still visible.

He was voiced by David Koechner who later portrayed Chet.

Role
He nearly steals a few of the hens, only to be stopped by Otis' foster father, Ben. He had sacrificed himself to save the hens and succumbed from his injuries after his fight with Dag.

Later, Ben's adoptive son Otis tries to take vengeance on Dag, but he loses his burst of courage as soon as the coyotes noticed him. Dag sadistically shames Otis by telling him that things would have been different if he was there for Ben. He then makes a "deal" with Otis, telling him that he will only steal a few animals each night, but if he tried to do something about it, he and his pack would slaughter every animal in sight, possibly including the farmer. In the morning, Otis decides to leave the barnyard, realizing that he has no chance.

However, the next morning, Otis was informed that the coyotes took all the hens and his chick friend, Maddy, making Otis realize that Dag double-crossed him, since he wasn't expecting him and the coyotes until tonight. Otis then went off to the junkyard to rescue the chickens.

Otis arrives at the junkyard just in time to prevent Dag from devouring Maddy, but Dag's goons easily overpower him. Fortunately, Miles the mule, Pip the mouse, Freddie the ferret, Peck the rooster, Pig the pig, and the Jersey Cows arrive to help Otis and Dag's goons were easily defeated.

Eventually, Dag tries a sneak attack on Otis similarly to how he overpowered Ben, but Otis was warned by Peck, who successfully did a loud crow. Otis caught Dag by the throat, hit his head against a bus window and threatened to punch him, like his father did; but instead, Otis warns the evil coyote to never come back and he agrees. Otis then whacks Dag with a golf club, sending him flying far, far out into the distance while howling in pain.

It is unknown what happened to Dag afterwards, but he and the other coyotes are most likely dead, injured, or they in a place where they found food.

Dag didn't return in any episode of Back at the Barnyard, but he was seen in several games.

Personality
Dag is greedy, violent, sadistic, murderous, hedonistic, parsimonious, ruthless, and lazy. However, unlike many villains, whereas they are motivated by greed or power, he and his coyotes only want food. However, it is important to note that while they steal hens on a regular basis, Dag remains notably thin, so much that anyone can see his ribcage. This could either be a medical condition or he only kills for fun.

Dag is also seemingly slanderous, egotistical, and manipulative, so he enjoys to torment his victims, this was shown at the hen house where he revealed to them he keeps the severed legs of his meals and threatens one of them. This also passes onto at the junkyard where he came close to devouring Maddy simply because she called him a "meaner". Otis was his archenemy and in turn Dag took great delight in saying that he should have helped his deceased father, Ben.

Throughout the film, Dag proves he is not above underhanded tactics to win a fight this was shown when he attacked both Ben and Otis in their legs when they were distracted by his coyotes. This also shows at the junkyard when he was planning to attack Otis from above the top of a bus. Dag is also very abusive, insulting, opprobrious, argumentative, and uncomplimentary, describing both the cows as "fat".

If his back is against a wall, Dag can also be very cowardly, worthless, inadequate, pusillanimous, and discombobulated whenever Ben and Otis threatened to punch him and he quivered, which made both cows spare him.

Trivia

 * At one point in the film, Dag claims his favorite part of the chicken to be the skin.
 * When the coyote pack invade the chicken coop to steal hens, Dag reveals that he keeps the devoured hen's feet to use as key chains and shows this to the hen's to frighten them.
 * Despite "Dag" being a Scandinavian name, Slavic countries (including Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Poland) kind of fit him better.
 * His alias being "Lady Killer" is also a reference to the infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy.
 * Dag can be seen drooling in the scene where he says "I love chicken."