The use of ‘cuddling the enemy’ and other English malapropisms

BY definition, a malaproprism is the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context, as in the misuse of the noun “monotony” for “monogamy” in the sentence “Having one wife is called monotony.”

I brought up this definition of the term so we can properly evaluate whether the phrases “cuddling the enemy” and “barking at the wrong tree” are indeed malaproprisms as pointed out by Isabel M., a Filipina reader based in Hong Kong who feels that the standard of English of Philippine journalism and social media is “truly abysmal” and “really depressing.”