Dogs could also inflict bleed (internal bleeding), fear (some dogs look pretty fearsome) and maybe their own Exp bar? (when the exp bar reaches XX, their melee skill goes up by X)
I do like to use dogs myself, but I don’t know for how many times I had them killed… I never actually use them as frontliners, but only to chase bandit marksmen, necromancers, skeleton bowmen and fleeing direwolves…
I would like to see the role of the dogs be a little more impotant…