Originally Posted by WarChild

Dog's evolved from wolves, yes, but because of people.

While nobody knows for absolute certain, the latest theory is that dogs evolved very quickly out of wolves when humans began living in permanent settlements. The wolves with the highest threshold of human tolerance were able to feed the easiest from the first human dump sites and very quickly evolved in to the more managable species we know as dogs today.

It would explain why ancient civilizations attached an almost magical value to the dog as a single generation of human may have seen dogs evolve out of wolves which would have seemed like pure magic to them.

It's actually a pretty interesting theory and implies that evolution in fact CAN happen at a very rapid rate, something that hasn't been thought to be true in the past.