Need domain name help

Theres a niche I'd like to get into with low competition it seems. The best domain has a forum attached that has been dieing since 2006. used to have 1k+ active users at all times. Now it has ~200 at peak times.

It's in the pet industry. I'm wondering if there is any way that I can make a domain close to it that wont affect the google search.

For instance. lets say I wanted dogs domain Is there a way that i could make a domain name that would still come up if someone searched dogs? Assuming I could compete and get my page in 1st or second position?

Dogs1 domain if i was ranked high enough would searching dogs bring up dogs1 domain? etc. Any tricks people have? In my niche, dogs would get 6600 local exact searches. and dog not plural would get less than 1k.

Thanks in advance.

no it depends on Competition. if you choose a domain lets say shop then its very hard to get it on first or second page because of huge competition. so keyword doesnt matter i think

Lets assume that the niche was low comeptition. Would google searches find shop just as well as "ilovetoshop"

Or for an extreme, lets say I wanted number2pencil but it was taken. could I hit #2 on google with ilovenumber2pencil ?

Or does the good domain names establish dominance through the searches?

Great domain name with like no SEO optimization VS worse domain name with tons of SEO optimization. Can the 2 compete?