When I was a child I read in an animal encyclopedia (yes I was an animal nerd at a very young age ^^) that hyena's fitted more into the feline family than the canine famly. I always thought this was very odd since they looked so dog like, but now that I can compare their skulls you can see the similarities!

I'm so happy I got my first hyena! It's far from perfect, but to me he's a real beauty and a keeper! I still have to fix his canines though. I think they are glued in wrong (don't know how you could make such a mistake...) or they are teeth from another animal? Or replicas? I don't know. It's a mystery!

So here you see on the left the skull of a German Sherpherd (not the black one on the photo since he's my dog and very much alive)
In the middle is ofcourse the Brown Hyena (Hyaena brunnea, formerly Parahyaena brunnea) That's one freakishly long latin name!
And on the right is a cat skull (the cat on the photo is my grumpy princess named Mops, she's still alive and sparkling)