>>46931936Where did I say that they were around in gen 1? I just mean I think they MIGHT have conceptualized the idea while making gen 1. Arcanine does have a weird amount of attention in the anime, and his pre-evo definitely feels tacked on, as it often is with shillmons (see: Riolu). Then you take into account the attention Ho-oh gets, along with the sudden appearance of Lugia, and some of the beta designs, like the beasts/cats being dogs originally, plus pic related, and you can see how it kind of looks like they might have wanted to do a dog trio and a bird trio in the early days of Pokemon. Obviously they scrapped the idea, but Arcanine and Ho-oh might be remnants from that idea.
