Interesting - I'd never head of this. There seems to be some debate over whether these puppies/dogs might be considered as pets, but perhaps it was the same for early humans too - domesticating cats (egyptians) and dogs for their utility at controlling pests and guarding/warning against intruders, then later warming to their furry friends.
Not just that, but there's a very wide, gray area in our other domestication stories too.
You don't just rock up to a herd of wild bovines and say "hey, you're my cows now, let me milk you". Rather, one day a group of humans started following a herd around, killing one once in a while for meat; eventually perhaps they started protecting the cattle from other predators and guiding where the herd went, while also starting to find ways to continue lactation in females and get them to acquiesce to being milked.
The cows that were compliant to the slow changes were the most likely to reproduce; rinse and repeat until you get whatever we have now.
