"The use of hot dog to mean skilled or proficient is unrelated to the sausage. In a bit of linguistic coincidence, this usage also appears in the 1890s. It first appears in 1894 in the sense of a well-dressed college student, a clothes horse. This usage is probably a variation on the older expression putting on the dog (1871, why dog is not known, but there is a well-established slang usage of dog meaning flashy or showy from the 1870s). It quickly moved from this sense of suave sartorial splendor to proficient, accomplished and eventually to its modern association with extreme sports and risky action."