I think the dog one is best, but I couldn't think of anything for Slytherin.
Snakes are associated with Slytherin pretty heavily in the books.
Yes, but snakes don't live their lives constantly being ambitious.
Lions are the mascot of Gryffindor, not phoenixes. But phoenixes embody the virtues of Gryffindor.
Badgers are the mascot of Hufflepuff. But if you ever encounter an animal more Hufflepuff than Lassie I will eat my hat.
My point isn't that there aren't animals that are associated to houses, it's that dogs don't understand anything except Hufflepuff, just like Phoenixes don't understand anything except Gryffindor.
(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. There haven't been any chapters recently, but it looks like there are a bunch in the pipeline and the old thread is nearing 700 comments. The latest chapter as of 7th March 2012 is Ch. 77.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: