An alternative to inu (犬 ), one can use ワンワン (wan wan) to refer to our canine friends.
As was explained to me, a typical usage of this word would look something like this: a parent is out walking with his/her young child. A dog appears on the sidewalk across the street. Parent then says to the child, "ほら！ワンワン来たよ！" (Translated literally, this would mean "Look! A dog came!" A more natural translation would simply be "Look! A dog!")
ワンワン also denotes the sound of a bark. Its English equivalents: bow wow, woof woof, arf arf, etc. This was probably the first example of Japanese onomatopoeia that I learned. I've heard that the Japanese language makes more use of onomatopoeia than does English, although I haven't seen any hard evidence or research. Intuitively, though, I believe it.
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おつかれやま!!! (In romaji, "Otsukareyama!!!" In kanji, お疲れ山?)
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