Thank you, Wendy.
I understand what you mean and it's quite the same in French: the sentence "C’est comme le chien" would be righter if you said : "C’est comme avec un chien" or "C’est comme pour le chien".

Hello France, une petite suggestion: It's a bit like having a dog; if you don't take it out for a walk at least once a day, it will be uncontrollable in the evening.
'It's like a' - my immediate understanding is that something looks like a dog and I had to read the previous two units again to remember what had just been said. (even though one could use this expression - it is a bit confusing because of the double meaning. I would probably use it with 'have' - It's a bit like having a dog.)
OR, you could write: 'It's the same for a dog' - which means that 'the same applies to a dog'