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Canis Major

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Aww, look at the cute, lit...cute gigantic doggie!

A giant canine. Any canid will do: domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, etc., as long as it's far bigger than any in real life. Temperament varies from the Angry Guard Dog on the one end to the Big Friendly Dog on the other, but since an animal's size is more often than not perceived to be proportional with how dangerous it is, the former tends to be more expected... which can make subversions all the funnier when a supposedly dangerous giant dog/wolf turns out to be as cute, playful and benign in behavior as your average puppy.

May or may not be a case of Animals Not to Scale, depending on what real-life species (or, in case of domestic dogs, breed) it most closely resembles, if at all.

A Sub-Trope of Dire Beast. A Sister Trope to Mega Neko, Rodents of Unusual Size.

Compare Precious Puppies, Hellhound, and Cute Giant. And who's afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Animal Land, wolves like Jeek's father and other canines are huge.
  • Belle from Belle and Sebastian is a large white Pyrenean Mountain dog.
  • Pluto from Black Butler, which can turn into a white haired human but keeps a dog mind. And can breathe fire.
  • Bleach: Captain Sajin Komamura is the largest Gotei captain and a wolf. He has nothing on his unnamed ancestor, who turns out to be even bigger - to put it on perspective, the Leader is at least five times bigger than Koma himself.
  • Giant canines are a Recurring Element in Digimon:
    • Dobermon is a giant doberman pinscher digimon. In Digimon Tamers it's accompanied by a human partner, sent by the Digimon Sovereigns to assist the tamers in battling the D-reaper by giving them the ability to biomerge in the real world.
    • Gabumon's evolved form, Garurumon, is a wolf big enough to be ridden with no problem. Being an evolution of one of the franchise's mascots, it tends to appear in a lot of Digimon media. There's also a viral palette-swap that shows up less often.
    • There's the saber-toothed shiba dog, Gaogamon, in Digimon Data Squad.
    • Seasarmon, the lion-dog digimon with solar attacks, and Caturamon the Dog-deva digimon, who has a surprisingly large effect on the plot of Digimon Tamers despite being a member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad.
    • Cerberumon is another big dog Digimon based on Cerberus of Greek myth; it can evolve from all of the above except Gaogamon. Digimon Adventure: (2020) features a Cerberumon so big that one of its heads is nearly as large as the already bus-sized Komondomon, quite possibly making it the largest example of this trope in the franchise. It leads a pack of car-sized Fangmon.
    • Digimon Fusion introduces Dorulumon, a big orange wolf with drills all over his body. He usually serves as either one member of a Fusion Dance or as an Equippable Ally.
    • Komondomon from Digimon Adventure: (2020) is an eight-legged hybrid of a Hungarian sheepdog and a troop transport the size of a double-decker bus. Komondomon is a very good boy, always making the protection of its passengers its first priority.
    • Loogamon, the main Digimon of Digimon Seekers evolves into Loogarmon, a muzzled, flame-spouting wolf with giant forelegs. Its dark evolution HelLoogarmon and Mega form FenriLoogamon are even larger and are Wreathed in Flames.
  • Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders - Ineffectual villain Imonoyama uses a growth ray to enlarge the duo's beloved dog, Inuko, into a giant monster dog. Fortunately, she still retains her playful personality and is "defeated" when an equally enlarged Takeshi commands her to shake hands with him, awwwww!
  • Kaibutsu from Ginga Densetsu Weed. According to the Ginga wikia, he weighs at around 1200 pounds.
  • Gintama: Kagura's big dog Sadaharu.
  • In Inuyasha, Sesshomaru, his father and his mother all have true forms that are this. In parts of the manga not yet officially published in English, there is a giant mountain dog and a giant fox kami.
  • The second Monster of the Week in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Unlike the later Mega Neko, this erred more towards the monstrous-looking side.
    • Arf and Zafira can both take on the form of wolves, though they look more like foxes when not in their puppy forms.
  • My-HiME: Natsuki Kuga's CHILD, Duran, is a pretty large mecha-wolf she can ride on. During her climatic fight with Shizuru Fujino, whose CHILD is a kaiju-sized hydra-octopus, Natsuki's Duran grows into a massive wolf of equal size.
  • Fenrir's real form in Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok; see below under Norse Mythology.
  • Naruto:
    • Akamaru grows quite huge after the Shippuden timeskip. And don't even think about Pain's Giant Multi-Headed Dog, one of the most perfectly terrifying creatures incarnate.
    • The nine-tailed fox, who was quite large when he was going around rampaging. It's interesting to wonder how large he actually is now that he's sealed inside Naruto. The one-tailed tanuki too because although tanukis resemble raccoons greatly, they're actually dogs.
  • In Natsume's Book of Friends, Nyanko-sensei's true form is a giant inugami.
  • Kotarou's full beast form in Negima Magister Negie Magi. The series also had a Cerberus, complete with the mane of snakes and dragon tail of the original Greek versions that most modern depictions omit. It didn't have the right number of heads, so Nodoka also theorizes that it might actually be Orthrus.
  • Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan:
    • Yura's shikigami Tanro is a massive wolf twice as tall as she is.
    • Inugami, who grows to absolutely massive size when he's angry, which is most of the time.
  • One Piece featured a zombie Cerberus, and a squad of dog-riders in Enies Lobby. There was also wolf-man Jabura, Ohm's giant attack dog Holy, and possibly Mr. 4's dog-gun Lassoo. Yamato can turn into a huge white wolf due to his [[devil fruit abilities]].
  • Moro from Princess Mononoke. Her (non-San) children are quite a bit larger than normal wolves, and are implied to be young children. She is considerably bigger compared to them.
  • In Rebuild World, The largest of the cannon dogs Akira encounters is so huge that it dwarfs the nearby buildings. Akira is barely as large as its pupil, and he empties his clip in a panic on Alpha's orders in a desperate but successful attempt to kill it.
  • Spice and Wolf: Holo is a harvest deity whose true form is a very, VERY large wolf.
  • Terry Cloth the Battlewolf from Toriko starts out pretty big (an adorable puppy that comes up to the main character's waist) and as the story progresses grows to truly gigantic proportions. We get a good look at a full-grown Battle Wolf in Chapter 263 which looks like it's the size of a building at the very least.
  • In Woof Woof Story, the main character is reincarnated into a puppy who is adopted by a wealthy noble girl in a fantasy world after he died of overwork as a Japanese salaryman. This was after a goddess apparently granted his wish to be reborn as a pet to live an easy life. The first hint that he's not a normal dog is when he looks in a mirror and realizes that he is much larger than his owner after only one month after his adoption.

    Comic Books 
  • The Atomic Knights rode giant Dalmatians who had been gentically altered due to exposure to radiation.
  • Fables: Bigby's true form which he can assume anytime he wishes is that of a huge wolf as tall as a two story house.
  • John Constantine of Hellblazer once had to put down a ghost-possessed bulldog the size of a rhino.
  • Lockjaw from The Inhumans, though for a while he was considered an Inhuman mutated into his current form, as per John Byrne. This later got retconned into Gorgon and Karnak playing a cruel joke on the Thing.
  • The Mighty Thor features Fenrir, the giant wolf from Norse Mythology, as a member of Thor's Rogues Gallery. This version is also a shapeshifter, powerful enough to take on Dormammu, and the progenitor of many wolf gods and spirits. The latter tidbit ends up making him a "grandfather" of sorts to Wolfsbane's son, who was fathered with Hrimhari, one of Fenrir's many kids. Personality wise, he's mean and aggressive, but also deeply protective of his children/descendants and isn't totally unreasonable. Still a major-league Jerkass, but he could be worse.
  • The Sandman (1989) had the giant dog Martin Tenbones, about the size of a small car, originally the imaginary playmate of Barbie, the protagonist of the "A Game of You" arc, but who came into the waking world to try to warn her about the arc's villian, giving her The Porpentine, a magical amulet, before he was shot and killed by the authorities. Despite being a Big Friendly Dog, upon his appearance he terrified an itinerant woman half to death.
  • The epilogue of the Emily Carroll horror comic anthology Through the Woods is a short story where a Red Riding Hood Replica travels through the woods to her grandmother's house safely and without incident. In her room that night, she looks out the window at the moon and comments out loud what a pleasant walk it was and how she knew the wolf wouldn't get her. The moon promptly turns out to be one of the wolf's eyes, and he takes a moment to address her, leaving her traumatized and her confidence shattered.
    Wolf: Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again, and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time. But the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.

    Eastern Animation 
  • Maxipes Fik: Maxipes (dog=pes) Fík, the dog hero from Czech animated shorts for children. When a girl named Ája (pronounced Ah-ya) got him as a puppy, he was normal-sized, but he grew to enormous size. He grew even bigger when he drank a barrel of beer, and Ája's father had to build a garage-like dog-house for Fík.

    Fan Works 
  • The Beast Of Gusu: Shifters' animal forms are all slightly bigger than regular animals, but wolf shifters are stated to become massive, to the point where it’s rumoured that a wolf alone could take down an army.
  • A Diplomatic Visit: In chapter 9, while Twilight and Swift-Pad are meeting the students at the Ponyville Schoolhouse, Snails mentions a legend about the Dire Wolves, larger wolves that supposedly inhabit the land that the Three Tribes migrated away from, and asks if Swift-Pad's people are related to them. Later, when meeting Wise-Mind, Packleader of the Strong-Defend pack, Twilight sees how much larger and more intimidating he is in appearance and thinks to herself that he looks like what she'd expect of the Dire Wolves that Snails described.
  • Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters: After Jade becomes a Shapeshifter, she can transform into a giant wolf.
  • The Moonstone Cup: The lands north of Equestria are home to giant sapient wolves. Their ruler, the immortal god-wolf Amarok, is immense — he's easily larger than Celestia, who is herself around three times a regular pony's height.
  • The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Zim's new ally Norlock has a pet wolf named Phil, who's described as being the size of a horse and built like a silverback gorilla.
  • In the A Troublesome Charge series, Fairy the spiritual dog is normally the size of a small pony. She gets even bigger in battle!

    Film — Animation 
  • Due to the shifted scale, Toby from The Great Mouse Detective qualifies. He's an ordinary pup, but all the other characters are mice.
  • In Steampunk cartoon Mr. Hublot, a cute little mechanical puppy grows (somehow) into an enormous mechanical dog that is several times larger than its owner.
  • The titular Big Paw from Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw is a giant puppy.
  • In Wolfwalkers, adult Wolfwalkers are huge in their wolf forms, standing eye-to-eye with grown men. Meanwhile, child Wolfwalkers like Mebh are a bit smaller than an average wolf.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Digby The Biggest Dog In The World. The titular hound is a freakishly huge Old English Sheepdog who grew due to drinking liquid growth formula.
  • King Caesar from the Godzilla movies. Maybe. The mythological creature that he is based on (a shisa, hence his name) has attributes of both dogs and lions. Further complicating things is the fact that he is not a flesh and blood creature but rather an elaborate Living Statue, though this isn't really made clear in his introduction.
  • The three giant dogs from Hulk.
  • The wolves in The Jungle Book (2016). They're at least twice the size of real grey wolves.
  • Gmork from The Neverending Story.
  • Rampage (2018): Ralph is a mutated wolf that grows to the size of a Kaiju.
  • The Beast in The Sandlot is played by a real dog, but photographed to appear almost supernaturally large. Then again, the canine actor was a mastiff who weighed over 200 pounds, pushing this trope into Real Life territory.
  • Thor: Ragnarok has Fenris, a gender-swapped version of Fenrir (see Comics section). She's as tall as a building and wide enough to take up the entire Rainbow Bridge. During the finale, she ends up having a brutal battle with the Hulk. Notably, she's big and powerful enough to make the Hulk bleed — something few people, aside from The Abomination, has ever been able to do.
  • Brutus the Great Dane from The Ugly Dachshund.

    Literature 
  • In Black Legion Khayon's bond creature, daemon Gyre, takes a form of enormous Fenrisian she-wolf. Khayon notes, though, that she doesn't really act like a wolf.
  • Pictured above: Clifford the Big Red Dog. The girl over there is his owner, Emily Elizabeth. Note that Clifford was born the runt of the litter; we're told that his growing to that size was a direct result of Emily Elizabeth's love.
  • The Dresden Files has Mouse, who gets his name as a puppy when Harry has him riding around in his pocket for the book. Turns out he had a whole lot of growing to do. Harry often makes jokes about the fact that Mouse is the size of a pony (literally; Harry is somewhere in the region of 6'8'' tall, and Mouse's shoulders come to his waist), ranging from calling him a "West Highlands Dogasaurus" to, "He's a mutt. Half mastiff, half woolly mammoth." He's also explicitly magical and seems to be somewhere around human intelligence, although his inability to speak can make it tough to tell exactly how much he knows.
  • In The General Series standard cavalry mounts are dogs bred up to the size of horses, and described as between eight- and fifteen-hundred pounds of fur, fangs and bad tempers.
  • Harry Potter: Fluffy from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a three-headed dog that is inspired by Cerberus. He is big enough to nearly fill a room.
  • The lack of Shapeshifter Baggage for Lycanthropes in the Kitty Norville books mean that werewolves range from 100-pound "That's a big one." to 250-pound "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!" wolves when they shift.
  • The feral dogs in Locksmith's Closet. Some of them are three feet tall at the shoulder and weigh about 200 pounds. Others are bigger than that.
  • The Malazan Book of the Fallen loves its huge canines:
    • The T'lan Ay are huge prehistoric wolves. And Undead to boot, as they've been extinct for about 320,000 years, when the T'lan Imass decided to include them in the Ritual of Tellann, which made the Imass undead.
    • The Hounds of Shadow and eventually the Hounds of Light also count. They're said to be the size of ponies, and the former can travel between realms using shadow magic as they are basically the pets of the King of High House Shadow. They are also thousands, if not hundreds of thousands years old.
    • The Deragoth, or Hounds of Darkness, are supposed to be even bigger and to reseble bears in size. They may be even older than the Hounds of Shadow, old enough, in fact, to once have domesticated early humans as their pets.
    • There is also Ryllandaras, a man/jackal shapeshifting beast that towers over everyone around it.
  • Werewolves in Mercy Thompson always gain mass when they take wolf form. This means that a human woman who weighs 110 lbs turns into a 180 lb wolf while a 180 lb man turns into a 250 lb wolf. The wolf forms of characters like Adam and Charles are described as being enormous.
  • In Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson, the werewolf hero can be a 180-pound man or a 180-pound wolf.
  • Percy Jackson's lovable hellhound Mrs. O'Leary.
  • Fully grown direwolves in A Song of Ice and Fire are the size of a pony.
  • The adults in Spot the Dog's world. At least, in the early books, and assuming the scale of their houses are one-to-one with those of the human world.
  • Roger Zelazny's This Immortal has Bortan, Conrad's dog he once found as a puppy and reared, never imagining it would grow as big as a horse — with plates at his sides and other mutations — or live for as long as thirty years and counting. If not for natural causes (mutation through radiation), Bortan would qualify as a Hellhound, and Conrad even calls him one repeatedly.
    Conrad: Was there ever another dog the size of a small horse, with armor plates on his sides, and jaws like a trap for bears?
  • Time Out of Time: Gwydon is a massive wolf with the ability to fly.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • Orcs occasionally ride Wargs (most noticeably seen in The Hobbit), which are giant evil wolves.
    • Also, The Silmarillion has Huan, the huge intelligent dog (good), and Carcharoth, the huge (were)wolf (evil).
  • The Quileute shapeshifters in the The Twilight Saga sequels turn into wolves as big as horses.
  • In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice briefly encounters a puppy about the size of a minivan. (Actually the puppy is normal; it's Alice who is anomalous.) Its boisterousness makes it more than a little frightening.
  • The Wolves of Paris is based on the Beast of Gévaudan. In the book, the Beast of Gévaudan is a wolf-dog who's several feet larger than a human. This is because his father was an alaunt, a breed known for being huge.

    Live-Action TV 

    Myths & Religion 
  • Greek Mythology:
    • Cerberus which also is three-headed and, depending on the story, is on fire or possesses a mane of snakes.
    • Orthros, the hound of Geryon, Orthros had two heads and a snake for a tail.
  • Norse Mythology:
    • Garm like Cerberus, guards the Underworld (Hel).
    • Fenrir, the son of Loki and a giantess, who bit off the hand of the god Tyr; fated to kill Odin. Fenrir in particular is enormous. When he opens his mouth his lower jaw is on the ground and his upper jaw hits the sky.
    • Sköll who is fated to consume Sól, aka the sun.
    • Hati who is fated to consume Máni, aka the moon.
    • If you go back far enough the Valkyries rode wolves the size of war horses.
  • Black Shuck, the mysterious Black Dog from Norfolk folklore, is sometimes said to be the size of a horse. Smaller than some other examples here, but still much bigger than a dog should be.

    Radio 
  • Tony Hancock bought a pet puppy for his girlfriend Andrée in one episode of Hancock's Half Hour, said puppy turned out to be one of these.

    Roleplay 

    Tabletop Games 

    Video Games 
  • In Bloodborne some of the enemies are this trope, with a massive, fiery Guardian of the Great Old Ones serving as one of the bosses of the Chalice Dungeons.
  • Giant wolves in the Castlevania games.
  • Dark Souls has the Great Grey Wolf Sif, a giant wolf that wields a giant sword. In the DLC, which takes place centuries in the past, you can meet Sif as a puppy, and they are still slightly larger than a fully grown normal wolf. Dark Souls III has the Greatwolves of the Painted World, which are just as massive as Sif. One is the Right-Hand Attack Dog of the Champion's Gravetender and serves as one half of a Dual Boss fight against the both of them. The "regular" wolves found in the DLC count as well, with the pack leaders being the size of horses.
  • The Mystic Beasts in the Disgaea series are large horned canids, and seemingly a popular form of transportation, judging from some scenes in Disgaea 4. In the same game, they can become even bigger in battle if another monster merges with them.
  • Dwarf Fortress: Savage versions of regular biomes include, among other things, giant versions of all normal animals, including canids (with the exception of actual dogs, as domestic animals don't have giant versions). Giant coyotes are larger than elk, giant dingos are the size of bears, giant foxes are about four times the size of a dwarf and giant wolves are the biggest canids of any sort and grow larger than polar bears.
  • Demon Canine from Eastern Exorcist is a doberman-turned-giant monster terrorizing a village, who can grab and lift a whole person in it's jaws.
  • Eternity: The Last Unicorn have Ulfstorr, a gigantic wolf fought in an arena who can spam magical fireballs besides clawing you to shreds. As the game is based on Norse myths, Ulfstorr could be related to the Fenris Wolf.
  • The mutated dog-boss in Fur Fighters. An unusual boss as it saw two mutated spouses instead of one. The other rode around on-top of the beast.
  • Half-Life 2: An honourable mention for Dog, Alyx Vance's enormous robotic pet that she's apparently owned since she was a child. He doesn't look much like a dog (at least not anymore, she's an enthusiastic and skilled mechanical engineer and probably upgraded him pretty extensively) but certainly acts like one.
  • Monster Hunter:
    • The Zinogre, a Lightning Bruiser who was the only Fanged Wyvern in the series before World. It's a huge, fast and agile electric wolf.
    • Monster Hunter: Rise introduces the Canyne, a very large dog that's big enough to be employed as a mount. Canynes that are trained to accompany Hunters, including for riding, are known as Palamutes.
  • Pikmin 4 introduces Oatchi, a dog-like creature that can carry around tens of Pikmin under the player's control, as well as the player themself. The Final Boss, the Ancient Sirehound, is about four times Oatchi's size.
  • Pokémon has some notable examples:
    • The Fire-type Pokémon Arcanine, which is big enough to ride around on.
    • While Houndoom itself is not that big (though is larger than the dog breeds it most resembles), its Mega Evolution clocks in at 6'03", the same size as Arcanine (although its horns make up a fair amount of that additional height).
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield bring the cover legendaries, which are a pair of wolves that are both over 9 feet long and likely stand as tall as Arcanine. Zamazenta is nearly 3 meters long!
      • Also from Sword and Shield, any Dynamaxed canid Pokémon counts as this.
    • Pokémon Legends: Arceus introduces Hisuian Arcanine, a regional variant which is slightly bigger than the base version. Then you encounter Arcanine, Noble Lord of the Isles, who is easily 10 feet tall at his head.
  • Old Red in Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy is, as his name indicates, a huge old red-furred wolf. He's so threatening-looking that he constantly scares the town of Torrido. Which is actually completely unintended, as he merely has the Face of a Thug: he just wants to see his old friend again.
  • In the Puyo Puyo series, Feli owns a giant armored hellhound named Baldanders. Despite towering over a lot of the other characters and disliking Feli's crush Lemres, Baldanders is actually quite sweet and is even willing to go out of his way to help Feli be with Lemres.
  • Tales of Berseria has the boss Therion Orthrus, which is a giant two-headed dog with fire and wind attacks. It's actually the merged form of two dogs that belonged to Niko who was killed by Velvet when she first became a Therion herself. Velvet talks them down from killing her for the sake of Revenge until after she has had her own revenge.
  • Tokyo Afterschool Summoners:
    • Fenrir, an anthropomorphic wolf transient, is able to change into a gargantuan size that's similar to his mythological counterpart.
    • While he isn't a Sizeshifter, Horkeu Kamui, another wolf transient, stands over 6 ft. tall, making him one of the larger companions in the game.
  • In Undertale: the Greater Dog (who turns out to be a dog in Powered Armor) and in addition the Lesser Dog (an actual dog-man). There is also the Endogeny Amalgamate, which is the largest of the dog type monsters by a considerable margin. It initially looks and acts terrifying, but in the end, it turns out to actually be a Big Friendly Dog.
  • Orcs in Warcraft games ride large wolves too.
    • Some bosses in World of Warcraft. Mostly Fenrus the Devourer. That thing is MASSIVE.
    • The game's lore features Goldrinn, the wolf god. A picture shows Goldrinn carrying a kodo, a lizard the size of an elephant, in his teeth as if it were the size of a rabbit.
  • In the finale of The Wolf Among Us, it's revealed that Bigby's true form is a wolf the size of a Triceratops.

    Web Animation 
  • Parodied with Cyanide and Happiness: S1E3's "Clawford The Big Blue Cat", which is a huge pain in the ass and kills the owner's mother. WHO CARES?! SHE HAS A DECIMATING GOLIATH!

    Webcomics 
  • All Night Laundry has one. At the beginning he's big, but not impossibly big. He's been bigger in each of his appearances since due to damage to Bina's Timeline.
  • Battlepug, follows the life of a barbarian and his oversized dog, many other oversized creatures also appear.
  • A Beginner's Guide to the End of the Universe: While traveling along the train tracks, Snuffy and Ryan are attacked by a void wolf around twice the height of an elephant.
  • Cry 'Havoc''s werewolves become this with a full moon. They stand about 6 feet tall at the shoulder, and are capable of standing on two legs, raising their height to nearly 12 feet. Needless to say, they also weigh more than most cars.
  • Drowtales: The Sarghress breed extra large riding wolves.
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court, Reynardine's true form is that of a large fox, and Ysengrin is an even larger wolf. But it is Coyote himself who can become truly massive, towering over even Ysengrim.
  • The Order of the Stick: Hinjo's mount Argent is a rather oversized dog/wolf. Also subverted when Belkar gets a riding dog.
  • Questionable Content author Jeph Jacques is the proud owner of a Great Pyrenees, one of the huge breeds, named Shelby. Inevitably, she's appeared in his non-canon work a couple times.
  • Quest of Camelittle has Black Fang, a creatively-named wolf puppy who can grow bigger at his own will.
  • Mitzi from Rhapsodies.
  • Sleipnir: Equine Invader from Jupiter: Fenrir—named after the giant god-eating wolf from Norse mythology—is a cyborg canid kaiju that grows larger the more it eats and can mutate into more powerful forms.
  • Unsounded: Dogs tend to be horse sized, or larger, and are used as saddle hounds as there are no actual horses in the setting.
  • Zebra Girl: Wally the werewolf is much larger in canine form than an ordinary wolf.

    Web Original 
  • In the superhero Web Serial Novel Gamer Girl, the first enemy encountered by superhero partners Gamer Girl and Fangirl is the Canine, an SUV-sized, pariah dog-like monster coated in fangs.
  • In Web Serial Novel Worm, one character, Bitch, has the ability to make dogs temporarily grow into giant, spiky monstrous forms. When she gets a wolf cub, it definitely fits this trope when transformed, particularly as it transforms better than the dogs do (it's less deformed by the transformation), possibly because wolves are just better.

    Western Animation 
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, we see giant wolves in the spirit world.
  • In the episode "Ace in the Hole" in Batman Beyond Terry (aka Batman) is locked in the dog fight ring with a vicious gigantic mutated mastiff.
  • The ghost dog in Danny Phantom has the ability to grow several times its normal size whenever it feels threatened. Lots of destruction occurs.
  • The title character from Dinky Dog.
  • In The Fairly OddParents!, Timmy needs some enemy that would scare Catman enough to team up with his rival Crimson Chin. Cosmo has one bright moment and summons a Humongous Mecha Dog.
  • The Garfield and Friends episode "Legend of the Lake" tells a story set in prehistoric times where a cave cat tries to reach a distant island with lasagna trees that's guarded by cave dogs. Eventually he succeeds, only to discover to his horror that the dogs were "five whole times his size", easily towering over him. To be fair, the island was far away enough that from his starting point, the dogs looked normal-sized.
  • Hilda has the Black Hound, an enormous black dog with glowing eyes that is mentioned several times throughout the series and becomes the main focus of the final episode.
  • Kim Possible: Commodore Puddles (Drakken's toy poodle who became giant via a growth ray) from "Rufus vs Commodore Puddles".
  • In Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, which takes place a few centuries into the future, dogs are some of the only animal species to not have evolved speech or wear clothes. On the other hand, they are all bigger than an average elephant, and some of them have multiple eyes.
  • In The Legend of Korra, Korra's Canine Companion is Naga, a polar-bear dog so massive that she easily serves as Korra's Horse of a Different Color, as seen here. Naga's dog side is predominant. Occasionally, though, her bear side shows through, and it is scary.
  • In Lumberjack Rabbit, Bugs Bunny discovers a patch of giant carrots being grown by Paul Bunyan, but also finds they're being guarded by a giant dog named Smidgen.
  • The Solid Tin Coyote is one of the Looney Tunes cartoons directed by Rudy Larriva. That winless coyote constructs a Giant Mecha coyote with which to pursue the Road Runner. The towering behemoth actually succeeds in capturing the quarry, but disposes of the coyote instead, due to obeying Exact Words.
  • My Little Pony:

    Real Life 
  • The constellation of the same name. It is the Trope Namer.
  • Subverted by real dire wolves. Despite fiction commonly portraying it as being nearly the size of a horse, they were actually no taller or longer than modern grey wolves (though they were more heavily built) and actually smaller than some of the largest breeds of domestic dog. Played straight, however, by the prehistoric canid Epicyon, which grew to the size of a lion.
  • Amphicyon ingens, a bear dog that prowled Miocene North America, could grow up to the size of a kodiak bear. Bear dogs, despite the name, are more closely related to dogs than to bears.
  • Tibetan mastiffs can easily outgrow humans, with a squatting mastiff at the same height of a human adult.

 
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Skoll

Skoll is the Heartless of Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, taking on the form of a giant phantom wolf.

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