Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Dog Names

The featured famous Dog of the Punch-Out!!  franchise is actually a very interesting case; since most of the notable events that have taken place in the Punch-Out!! universe have gone down in the ring, not very many dogs have been featured in any of the Punch-Out!! games. In the early days of the NES, however, there were a few advertisements that featured characters from the game interacting with characters from some of Nintendo's other early games - ads would feature characters like Little Mac or King Hippo standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Link, Mario, and the Laughing Dog from the Duck Hunt game. Known by a number of Nintendo fans as Duo, this Laughing Dog is closest the Punch-Out!! series has to a prominent canine character.

Duo was given his name by Nintendo fans for a very specific reason - the Laughing Dog is never seen apart from an austere duck that acts as his companion and battle partner in the Super Smash Bros. franchise. Since neither the Laughing Dog or his duck buddy have official names of their own, Nintendo fans have taken to referring to the two of them as the "Duck Hunt Duo" or simply "Duo" for short. To confuse the issue further, the name Duo is used interchangeably to refer to the Laughing Dog or the Duck  - just as how the phrase Duck Hunt is used interchangeably.  It's definitely a confusing scenario that could be alleviated if Nintendo gave the Duck Hunt Duo official names (like Douglas or Daniel instead of Laughing Dog,) but the fandom has effectively made lemonade out of lemons when they came up with the name Duo.

Another dog that's got a tenuous relationship with the Punch-Out!! series would be Brian Griffin from the long-running animated sitcom Family Guy. Throughout the show's run, series creator Seth MacFarlane has made numerous allusions and references to videos games such as Super Mario, Street Fighter, and of course Punch-Out!!. During the episode Not All Dogs Go To Heaven Peter Griffin, Brian Griffin's caretaker and patriarch of the Griffin family, says a prayer at the request of his daughter Meg Griffin asking God to help him beat Bald Bull (mentioning that he's been stuck on the third boss of the first game for four years). Brian, who can talk and is the most prominent canine character in the show, is present during the prayer - nonplussed by what he likely perceives to be just another of Peter's cockamamie antics.