Nintendog

The Nintendog (, Nintendog) appears in the series of games. The franchise was originally conceived by Shigeru Miyamoto, and is now one of the most successful series of games on the Nintendo DS handheld system. In this simulation title, the player takes the role of a dog owner and uses the various capabilities of the DS to look after their chosen puppies. They can walk them to several different locations, buy them different types of essentials and train them for competitions.

Origin
The Nintendog first appeared in the DS game Nintendogs, a real-time simulation on taking care and playing with puppies. When a player turns on the game, the puppies that the player bought will "greet" the person by jumping in front of the camera and barking. The Nintendogs also do this when the player pushes the "Call Dogs" button, or by calling or whistling for the Nintendog in the DS microphone. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. 4, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a Nintendog appears on the stage for a short period of time. The Nintendog then jumps in front of the camera in a similar fashion to how they did in the Nintendogs games. The SSB4 and Ultimate versions of the Nintendog are more in line with their designs used in nintendogs + cats.

As an Assist Trophy
The Nintendog appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was first seen in the trailer at E3 2006, although its role at the time was unknown. Much later, it was confirmed to be an Assist Trophy. Upon being summoned, the Nintendog comes up to the screen and prevents players from easily viewing the battlefield and their own characters; in addition to potentially staying still and staring at the player, the Nintendog can also paw at the screen, dynamically altering visibility of gameplay. Names and other tags are also disabled and CPU characters that are covered by the Nintendog do not do anything until the incursion subsides. The puppy will always bark twice at the bottom left corner of the screen before leaving.

The Nintendog must complete its animation and disappear on its own before it can block the screen. If it is made to fall off of a ledge (such as pushing it or breaking a destructible platform) but on to another floor, it will simply restart its animation and continue as normal. If it crosses a blast line, it will despawn and won't block the screen.

The Nintendog featured in Brawl is a. Game director Masahiro Sakurai stated in the update on the Smash Bros DOJO!! that he chose the breed because of its popularity in many regions of the world.

Nintendogs were considered as playable characters in Brawl, but were ultimately dropped as Sakurai considered them ill-suited for battle and felt they would work better as an Assist Trophy instead.

As an Assist Trophy
The Nintendog Assist Trophy also retains its role from Brawl, disrupting visibility of the game. The Assist Trophy is now a, instead of a Labrador Retriever.

Like in Brawl, the Nintendog needs to complete its animation before it can block the screen and can be despawned by having it fall in to a blast line. Like with most Assist Trophies, Nintendog will now stop at ledges, preventing it from being pushed off&mdash;this doesn't prevent it from being pushed over a ledge while it is in the air and it can still fall by destroying the platform beneath it.

As a background character
Several species of Nintendogs appear in the background of the Living Room in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. They are a Toy Poodle, a Shiba Inu, a Beagle, a Jack Russel, and a Golden Retrievers.

Trophies
Nintendog's trophy appears in both versions. In it is part of the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS. Trophies of other Nintendog breeds appear exclusively in.

As an Assist Trophy
The Nintendog returns as an Assist Trophy yet again. This time, the dog is a Toy Poodle. It functions the same as it did in Smash 4 in that it needs to complete its animation to block the screen, can't be pushed off ledges, and will despawn if it crosses a blast line. All breeds that had appeared as an Assist Trophy throughout the series appear as spirits.

Nintendog can't be summoned on these stages:
 * Flat Zone X
 * Magicant
 * Midgar
 * Mishima Dojo
 * Spirit Train
 * Super Mario Maker
 * WarioWare, Inc.

As a background character
The previous breeds reprise their roles for the Living Room.

Trivia

 * Occasionally, pausing the game in Brawl while the Nintendog is on the screen will instantly cause it to leave.
 * In SSB4, while Nintendog will still appear in front of the screen when paused, moving the camera will cause it to be missing at every angle and zoom.
 * In Ultimate, "Nintendog" is not capitalised, matching the stylization of the series' name.
 * Nintendog, Andross, and are tied for having the most spirits for an Assist Trophy with 3 each. In its case, the Toy Poodle, Labrador Retriever, and French Bulldog spirits.
 * Nintendog is the only character that can be an Assist Trophy and a background character at the same time, likely due to being a nonspecific member of a greater species, unlike Knuckles, Moon, and Kapp'n.