I still don't know why kobolds are basically dogs in Japanese media.
Better that than the miniature lizard men that D&D has since turned them into, I suppose, though at this point I would be shocked to see anyone depict them properly as little people dressed like miners.
EDIT: After a quick look-see at some reference material it seems kobolds, like goblins and trolls, are so generic in European folklore that really they could be damn near anything you want from the ghosts of dead kids to animal-shaped boogeymen (though interestingly I didn't see dogs listed among them). I always figured they were like the German version of dwarfs but I guess that's just one take on what they might be.
The presence of dog-kobolds in Japanese stuff is actually due to early editions of D&D (and by extension, videogames like Wizardry) where they were weird dog-men with inconsistent art that only sometimes had scales, the whole dragon-relation thing only came about with third edition. Pig orcs are a similar story.
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