hot dog: [19] This term for a cooked sausage or frankfurter in a bun has its origins in the mid- 19th-century use of dog as an American slang term for a sausage (perhaps an allusion to the sausage’s often dubious contents). By the 1890s hot dog was Yale University slang for a cooked sausage bought at a fast-food stall, and by 1900 it was in widespread use for the whole deal, bun and all. Since then it has never looked back. (The widely repeated story that the term was invented by the US cartoonist ‘Tad’ Dorgan in the early 1900s is quite untrue.) [hot dog etymology, hot dog origin, 英语词源]
also hotdog, "sausage on a split roll," c. 1890, popularized by cartoonist T.A. Dorgan. It is said to echo a 19c. suspicion (occasionally justified) that sausages contained dog meat. Meaning "someone particularly skilled or excellent" (with overtones of showing off) is from 1896. Connection between the two senses, if any, is unclear. Hot dog! as an exclamation of approval was in use by 1906.