Cynodictis the bear dog is a small Carnivorous mammal from the Bear Dog family. It is more related to dogs than to bears. The offspring are called pups and lived in caves where they are protected by the parents. Because of its small size Cynodictis would have had to specialize in hunting creatures that were further down the food chain such as rodents and lizards. Scavenging the kills of the larger predators would have also been an option, but only when the larger predators had left the carcass. They are the prey of big predators like Hyaenodon. They lived during the late Eocene and into the early Oligocene.