Thread: псов

What does "псов" mean in the following sentence?

И когда они захватывают власть в свои руки, будь то путем военного переворота, нечестных выборов или даже честных выборов, мы все равно должны быть начеку, выполняя работы сторожевых псов общества.

пёс - a dog
псы - dogs
псов - dogs of
сторожевых псов общества - watch dogs of society

translated verbaitim псов meas of dogs in your passages it talks about them having to be on guard, doing the job of watchdogs of society, and it seems to me there'a typo there
выполняя работы сторожевых псов общества.
should be
выполняя работУ сторожевых псов общества.

работы is ok in the meaning of "tasks, jobs, functions" etc.

Originally Posted by chaika

работы is ok in the meaning of "tasks, jobs, functions" etc.

yeah generally the plural работы is ok, often in contexts where english has singular like for example "the contstruction work is to be carried out vby such and such" usuallly would translate into "строительные работы будут проводиться такой то фирмой " but in this particular expression where it says they're going to have to do a watchdog's job or the job of a watchdog. Even in English I'd guess the jobs of a watchdog would probably sound a bit strange because what's being referred to here as well as implied is one particular job of watching over the situation and rasing the alarm if democracy should start turning into a dictatorship.

I just saw that in the original there's more than one watchdog but it doesn't really matter here as they all have just one task/job rather than many. You know работы seems to be only used in plural in fixed expressions like строительные работы, монтажные работы и т.д. but when you're talking about doing somebody's job it's practically always singular as in - Почему я должен делать его работу. Работа вышибалы заключается в том чтобы вышибать из клуба разбушевавшихся клиентов. So that's why I figured that работы in that passage had to be a mistake.