Dog

What dogs do when nobody's looking.

Man's best friend, a creature bred for friendship, hunter's aid, and police work. They have been by humankind's side for 16.000 to 32.000 years and are mankind's best invention only on par with porn, beer, and the internet. They are loyal and fierce, masking that with goofiness.

They've been bred into different forms over the countless millennia; from protection to fighting and even pulling carts. There are even dogs that can sniff out cancer.. An extensive list of dog breeds can be found here.

Origins

There are couple different theory's for where and how humans picked up our best friends. The most common theory is that a long time ago when mankind was a bunch of hunter gatherers still 'debating' our place on the food chain we left a trail of scraps that attracted predators and soon they started following us. One of these were wolves and you could not design an animal better suited to be useful then a wolf. Humans are Persistence hunting, we lock eyes with our prey and power walk at it till it falls over. Wolves are not quite as good as us but there in the same general ball park. Wolves are also smart compared to say deer and can be trained, they can be conditioned, to do things for positive rewards fairly easily. Those two traits meant that they eventually they became useful to humans, seeing the use of having animals that can be used for guarding and hunting.

They kept the wolves, and over time somebody had the genius idea of breeding based on certain traits and soon this caused an artificial evolutionary tree. Through primitive genetic engineering selectively breeding things like fluffy coats for surviving colder weathers, thick skin for fighting other dogs, search and rescue and so on. Over 36.000 years they have been bred for millions of different tasks, but have also been one of the most wide spread companions. They have even been sent into the black reaches of space. Most of which we brought back!

Dungeons & Dragons

The following doggos appeared in D&D:

• Batracine: Bulldogs with frog legs.

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• Blink Dog: Dogs that can teleport via the ethereal plane.

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• Caniquine: A large dog with the hindquarters of a horse. Can be tamed and ridden.

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• Cooshee: Magical dogs bred by elves.

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• Death Dog: Evil two-headed dogs. Their bite imparts a rotting curse similar to that of mummies.

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• Fenhound: Servants of the Dark Powers of Ravenloft. They hunt down people who do evil deeds in or near swampy terrain.

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• Hellhound: Fire-breathing dogs.

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Hound of Ill-Omen: Divine servants sent to punish major transgressors against a god. It howls at you and walks away and then the next 4d10 hits you receive do quadruple damage, and you can't be healed until they're all rolled.

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• Lupasus: Dire wolves with wings.

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• Moon Dog: Dogs with human hands and lips native to Elysium.

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• Phantom Hound: Ghost dogs.

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• Saluqi Greyhound: From Al-Qadim. Also a real life dog breed.

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• Shadow Mastiff (called Shadow Hound in 4e): Pack predators from the Shadowfell.

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• Skeletal Hound: Calcium Canines

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• Spectral Hound: Native to the Astral Plane. Their bite bears a curse that causes the victim to gradually become invisible and muffled, until no one can see or hear them. After a day and a half, the affected creature slips completely into the Astral Plane.

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• Silver Dog: Rare, beautiful dogs that magically compel anyone who sees one to try and capture it. Invisible to darkvision.

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• Temporal Dog: Time traveling dogs. Said to be an evolved form of blink dog.

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• Tyrg: A cross between a dog and a tiger.

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• Yeth Hound: Evil flying dogs with humanlike faces. Anyone who hears their bark must save vs fear.

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• Yowler: Exactly the same as yeth hounds.

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Dog PCs?

See Lupin.

Warhammer Fantasy

The ruinous powers have Flesh hounds of Khorne, essentially very grouchy and bloodthirsty demon puppers that have taste for psykers and wizards. Chaos is apparently hoarding all the non-demon doggos too (they probably feel a lot less guilty about seeing Lassie sliced up by a sword than most others would), as the chaos warhounds are part of the warriors of chaos faction and in one edition could actually take marks of chaos as an upgrade.

The thought of a dog gaining enough infamy to ascend to a Daemon Prince would be hilarious.

Bretonnian being warhammer Frenchies loves truffles and specifically breed Truffle Hounds to find them. The said hounds has uncanny sense of smell that allows them to smell the truffles hiding underground. They are also notoriously ugly dogs with faces that look as though they have been dropped and put back together by a clumsy five-year-old. However, these hounds are also obsessed with truffles that they would immediately eat them the moment they've found it, which they would become paranoid from eating them.

Orion is always accompany by two of his hounds in battle. Both of them has frenzy and unbreakable special rules just like their master.

And of course there's Ulric, the white wolf god, the second most popular god in the Empire. Unlike Space Wolves however, the wolves his associated with are actual canine so he gets to talk about in this section.

Warhammer 40k

For more information, see here: Canid

Magic: the Gathering

Since Hound is was a creature type, and Dog has been a creature type since 2020, they are practically on every plane of existence in one form or another. Some planes have them walk upright.

Gallery

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  A very badass retriever.
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  Adeptus Corgis
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  2e
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  5e
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  Pathfinder