Dog messages?

[Lapu]

What do all those player messages mean that just say "dog", practicallly everywhere (especially in the DLC), be it NPC, enemy or item? I remember the meme that the tortoises are dogs but this seems unrelated. Is this some kind of lost in translation thing? I remember that the "fort, night" messages were confusing for japanese players because after translation, you can only take the written message at face value (i.e. "castle at night"). Is this a similar case with like maybe chinese or japanese? Also same thing seems to be the case with "horse" messages. Horses were a meme name for dragons in DS2 but of course, the main player base here probably hasn't played DS2 so that can't be it (also didn't appear in base game).

[LuckyCheshire]

no horse ahead, so praise the message

[𝓢𝓲𝓵𝓵𝔂𝓕𝓸𝔁]

You're in the know, right?

[Nihrahk]

Well, there's no turtle option so you usually see "dog" whenever you see a turtle.

[DeathRow]

its a known dog whistle, really makes me question my fellow gamers