The well documented "pavlovian response" in dogs may be key to understanding their evolution from wolves.
That is, back in supra-olden times, perhaps early humans (~10,000 BCE) utilized some sort of "dinner bell" like type thing, or even just yelled out when it was time to eat. In either case, the wolf who is primed to respond Pavlovially has a different response and a different evolutionary advantage than one who waits to collect the garbage at the end of the night.
These Pavlovian beasts interact with the humans, because they know when the food is coming.
Furthermore, they KNOW! This "gnosis" has got to have an effect on the evolution of the puppy brain. Any expansion of knowledge within a species is a sign it is ready to evolve. Mosquitos know they love blood, but they do not know much else. Ducks know the first living creature they see is there mother, bears know how to open jars of honey, etc. (This leads to thought of a whole other experiment, where you aim to determine the boundary where ducks will imprint... will they imprint upon a docile bear? What about a monkey, or a dog? A turtle? A tarantula?)
But anyway, in each case the more "sophisticated" the creature, the more knowledge they possess, even if it is locked in their autonomous sub-conscience.
This new knowledge of when and where food was available (where the wolf hears just cries or whistles as white noise, the wolf primed-to-evolve-into-dog hears something, they KNOW. This gives them further context of their space and their time, and helps facilitate the evolution of their brains.
I googled "pavlovian response dogs" and got 324,000 hits.
I replaced "dogs" with "wolves," and nothing on the first few pages specifically addressed my inquiry, whatsoever.
Go forth and solve!
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