dogleg. In golf this describes a fairway that has an angle in it, rather than being a straight shot from tee to green. It may also be used in driving directions, indicating a bend in the road.

dogleg. (oilfield) A particularly crooked place in a wellbore where the trajectory changes rapidly in three-dimensions. Sometimes a dogleg is intentional and sometimes, as far as I can tell from my research, it just happens: “a section of the hole…changes direction faster than anticipated or desired, usually with harmful side effects.”

dog-leg tobacco. An inferior quality of chewing tobacco, “so called because it is in the shape of a twist.”

Haber cites Mitford Mathews’ Dictionary of Americanisms. It may simply be that tobacco twists in general are considered “dog-leg”, or that there was a certain kind of twist that was considered to resemble a dog’s leg. As you can see in Figure 2, the twists can be somewhat complex. I have been able to find almost no corroboration for Haber. Through the generous efforts of the archivists at The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, I was able to discover that dogwood bark was used to mix with tobacco by some Native American tribes. This is the closest reference they could find.

Despite the resurgence of tobacco chewing in the U.S., it appears that this term is less likely to make a comeback: commercial purveyors no longer sell “smokeless tobacco” in twists.

Figure 2 shows an oil rig with a crooked wellbore. © 2009 Jupiterimages Corporation.

In Figure 3 we see tobacco twists that look remarkably like feces. However, photographer Dave Jones (who posted this image on his Southern Bread web site) assures me that these are indeed tobacco twists. Used by permission.

see also: dog leg claim
cf: crooked as a dog's hind leg; dog-leg claim