If anything, dogs resemble juvenile rather than fully adult canids, a sort of arrested development which accounts for the way they remain dependent on their human owners throughout their lives.
Now, some experts think the earliest canid was a small, weasel-like creature called Prohesperocyon, which first appeared about 36 million years ago in southern Texas.
Bovids, equids and, in particular, canids, were put to work by H.sapiens; felids always took a slightly different view of the matter, but were indulged for their rodent-catching talents.
So while the canines went on with their own set of prey and long-distance hunting strategies, the bone-crushers, once the most dominant of the canids, found themselves struggling for survival.