The doglike alien species in Vernor Vinge's 'A Fire Upon the Deep' is the Tines.
The Tines are not individual doglike aliens in the usual sense. Each intelligent being is a pack of several doglike creatures whose minds are linked by short-range ultrasonic communication. A typical pack contains four to eight members and possesses roughly human-level intelligence.
The Tines inhabit a medieval-level world in the novel's Bottom of the Beyond. Their unusual biology allows a pack to replace dead members and preserve its identity over generations. Woodcarver, one of the story's important Tine characters, demonstrates how a pack can survive and change for centuries.
Readers sometimes confuse the Tines with the Skroderiders, a plantlike species that uses mechanical skrodes, or with the Blight, a dangerous superintelligence. The Tines are central to the planet-based portion of the novel, while the other species occupy very different roles in Vinge's wider galactic story.