Stands alone. A hotdog is a hot dog, the way a Corvette is a Corvette and not just a car.
Some will remember when Bitstrips had an app on Facebook that you could make silly pictures of yourself or poke fun at others.
I of course prefer to make fun of myself! It’s much more fun and if I offend myself it’s my own fault isn’t it?
Today’s addition:
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Hi,
The hot dog is the neat, the bun is the bread, its a sandwich.
Call the hotdog a weiner, or a banger, ora frankfurter.
Can you eat it apart from the bun?
Of course, hotdog spaghetti, bangers and mash, frankfurters and kraut.
If you don’t have a bun, can you wrap the weiner in a slice of bread?
Yes.
Does it then become a sandwich?
No. Because it was already a sandwich while in the bun.
The bun makes it a sandwich.
Blessings
Quickly revisiting the ‘hot dog’ question; my own thoughts were along similar lines to Fritz’s.
My much shorter version is fairly simple:
If I ask you, Would you like a hot dog? You would have a concept of what I’m offering you. At least for the US, the typical hot dog consists of a specific sort of mild sausage of a given length and thickness on a bread roll with condiments.
But if I were to offer you a SANDWICH, there would be additional questions like ‘what sort of sandwich? Ham? Turkey? PB&J?’
PFFST! COUGH COUGH. blegh 
High above, on a guano covered ledge, mild mannered reporter, Rock Dove has instantly somehow transformed himself into the unrecognizable Captian PigeonPoop, ready to rain down righteous terror on crime where ever it is found.