Statting a Bonecrushing dog

[liquidformat]

Hi All, so I am trying to create a Bonecrushing Dog and struggling a bit I don't simply want it to be a reskinned Dire Wolf but sadly my creative side is coming up blank. So I was hoping to get some fun ideas from the community!

Cheers and thanks for the help!

[PraxisVetli]

What CR are you going for?
And does it need to specifically be able to crush bones?

[liquidformat]

So I have been trying to debate that, looking historically a dire wolf is actually not much bigger than a gray wolf whereas a bone crushing dog should be closer in size to a lower to mid range of a lion. Yet in the game a dire wolf is larger than a lion., so given that I would go with CR 3-5 40' speed since dire wolves were supposedly faster but 2d6 bite, with greater str, con, NA but lower dex. The real question is special attacks, should it just get improved grab, improved grab plus trip, maybe something else to make it slightly interesting?