I don't know for sure, but there is quite a lot of lore around foxes and dogs, see Kitsune and Komainu for example. Since Zelda is a Nintendo game and Ghost of

I don't know for sure, but there is quite a lot of lore around foxes and dogs, see Kitsune and Komainu for example. Since Zelda is a Nintendo game and Ghost of Tsushima is set in Japan, I would think it has more to do with real world lore than a reference to Skyrim.