That raises another point. I suppose the rough-hewn nature of the quote lends itself to the less polished, slangy version. Rendered into grammatical standard English, the phrase deflates and loses all its power. It swings no longer. I don't know much about bulldogs, but I'm willing to bet they get aggressive and insistently unhappy when not fed on a regular schedule.
Overhead costs tend to be like that, too.
The rent must be paid. The payroll must be met. I wanted to add that, in one of those eerie Phrase Finder coincidences, I saw a variation of the phrase right after reading Cord's post. No comment don t feed the bulldog. That raises another point.