"Dog" is sometimes used to refer collectively to any mammal belonging to the family Canidae (as in "the dog family"), such as wolves, foxes, and coyotes. Some members of the ancestry have "dog" in their common names, such as the Raccoon Dog and http://www.boomerangtags.com/ the African Wild Dog. A few animals have "dog" in their common names but are not canids, such as the prairie dog.
The rapidity of this addition back-number suggested to researchers a scenario of the origin of the domestic dog