Three Dog Night is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band best known for their music from 1968 to 1975. During that time the band charted 21 Billboard

Billboard charts

The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

top 40 hits in America, three of which reached Number One. As of 2011, they are still recording and making live appearances.
The official commentary included in the CD set Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1965-1975 states that vocalist Danny Hutton

Danny Hutton

Daniel Anthony Hutton , is an Irish-American singer, best known as one of the three lead vocalists in the band, Three Dog Night. Hutton was the head of Hanna Barbera Records from 1965-1966...

's then-girlfriend June Fairchild suggested the name after reading a magazine article about indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

, in which it was explained that on cold nights they would customarily sleep in a hole in the ground whilst embracing a dingo

Dingo

The Australian Dingo or Warrigal is a free-roaming wild dog unique to the continent of Australia, mainly found in the outback. Its original ancestors are thought to have arrived with humans from southeast Asia thousands of years ago, when dogs were still relatively undomesticated and closer to...

, a native species of wild dog.