1. Suffering from a state of relentless bad luck.
"With the sun setting over the rugged tundra, this was no place to be ten dogs down."
Sitiok Aglerolarpok: Tales from the Frozen North, Kaniq, Kuuk (1903 trans. Montgomery, James)

2. Encountering seemingly unending adverse conditions.
"Livin large or 86 it? that's got me wack:
S aight be membrane buggin'
be pwned, arrowed, ten dogs down,
O get your weight on 'gainst all suckas,
and ghost dem all."
Hamlet soliloquy in rap. (date unkn., trans. Rasmussen, Jeff)

3. Displeasing to the eye; unsightly.
"That buttaface down in Longwood? Body's slammin but her face be ten dogs down, yo.."
Urban Dictionary, Peezie, J.

Probable etymology: Inuit sled dog proverb. (Possible mistransl. of "dien do thao" [maelstrom of ill fortune], 13th. century Shrivijaya during the Muslim onslaught.) Synonyms: 1, 2. cursed, troubled. 3. Busted, jacked (slang). Antonyms: 1,2. blessed, fortunate, balls deep (slang). 3. beautiful, gorgeous.

Variation on 13th century Southeast Asian symbol for systemic entropy, aka "bad luck" or descent into chaos, a recurrent theme in many forms of feng shui. (date unkn., illus. undergroundbastard)