[Salamander]

http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/dogs-not-as-close-kin-to-wolves-as-thought-140116.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0117/Did-dogs-really-evolve-from-wolves-New-evidence-suggests-otherwise

http://www.hngn.com/articles/22228/20140117/dogs-did-not-originate-from-wolves.htm

http://www.sott.net/article/272118-Dogs-are-not-descended-from-modern-wolves-but-split-from-common-ancestor-34000-years-ago

[Tallguy]

Recommend “Guns, Germs and Steel” for a treatment on the domestication of animals. The author makes a distinction between animals that are “tame” and those that are “domesticated”. Both can be approached/trained, but only the “domesticated” are reared by humans through selective breeding.

So his theory fits nicely with this article in that there was a long ‘association’ of “tame” wolf-dogs with humans before the animals were “domesticated”. The change in status probably occured when humans developed fixed farming communities and/or mobile herding communities.