Bad raccoon dog!

So, I read Kachi-Kachi Yama to the second-graders the other day and it features a character called tanuki which is the name of an animal found it parts of Asia. Well the translation in the book kept repeating "raccoon dog" this and "raccoon dog" that, and I was so confused. What the hell is a raccoon dog!? It's like saying a cat bear or a turtle frog. I assumed it was a mistake and figured it was just a raccoon, because it seemed to have similar features: the jail house stripes and the size of a large cat or small dog. But after a bit of research and comparison from Wikipedia, sure enough, there is a "raccoon dog". Not even related to North American raccoons either. It's part of the canidae family which includes dogs, foxes and wolves.... I'll be.