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Well we don't know when you were little but it sounds like a Mons Series like Magi-Nation, Kaijudo or Huntik. You might want to have a look over the list.
Working on cleaning up List Of Shows That Need Summary
Sounds like MonsterRancher, I didn't watch it enough to remember anything about the girl's father, but everything else in your description matches up.
Most of the things remind me of the Monster Rancher anime, with a few errors here and there (the wolf was a team member, the girl's father was not the wolf but the Big Bad, the kid was Trapped in TV Land inside the Monster Rancher PS 1 game in the first episode and never came back)
Number one fan of characters that appear only once and ultimately were a recurring character either in disguise or trying a new image.
Yes I remembered it looking a little bit different but I think that it was that and since I didn't see it in a long time I misremembered something but it matches up. I think watched it around the time that I watched hunterXhunter but I don't think it was the first time it was airing so it wouldn't help much. I'm glad you know huntik it's one of my favourites :) Thanks to everyone!
Lara/Ervi
I remember seeing it when I was little and there was this kid and a girl and maybe some others that collected stone tablets with monsters inside and the girl was trying to find her father and he was connected to a wolf in one of those tablets or maybe he was the wolf. The problem is that I remember only seeing two or three episodes and the father ending up as the wolf was a bit surreal so maybe I just dreamed of it but I've always wondered if maybe it really existed and if I could see the ending. And I'm pretty sure the kid lived in the normal world and went in the fantasy one whenever he wanted. I probably imagined it but it looked really real and I was always convinced that I had really seen it. And I've had other dreams that looked like cartoons and I remebered they were dreams so I'm pretty sure this is real