Certainly, domestication of other animals (dogs, cattle, sheep, pigs, etc) had a huge effect on human culture and, to some extent, on genetics. New diseases had to be dealt with, for example.
The main problem with your scenario is that early humans were using tools and walking upright long before they domesticated dogs. Dogs were domesticated between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago, while tool use goes back well before our species appeared. Modern humans (genetically) existed 100-200,000 years ago and were making complex tools at that time.
I was not talking about domestic dogs. The scenario I spoke of involved wild dogs in the very beginning leading to the changes we see via fossils. Domestication of dogs is when humans began to lead the dogs due to selective breeding. We cannot domesticate wolves the same way. Domestic dogs are more compliant and dependent than wild dogs. Domestic dogs do not have the same instincts as wild dogs like the wolf.
Forming an alliance and learning from wolves, for example, would be very useful for the ape man, who had to leave an easy survival environment. Going north would add a lot of wild cards. They need the dogs running on all natural cylinders and not just a shell they can boss around make dysfunctional. These two natural species saw an advantage for themselves; nurturing each other.
Science and Evolution confuses the issue, since science uses a very shallow criteria for defining humans; DNA and bones. All you can get from bones and fossils is a shallow shell criteria.
I prefer define humans in terms of the human brain's operating system. This will define what is possible at any given point in time. If you have a ten year old computer with a current operating system, its capacity can appear beyond the same make and model with the original operating system. Civilization did not form until about 6000-10,000 years ago, because the operating system of the human brain was not yet advanced enough. There were many starts up in terms of early civilization 10,000 years ago. These all aborted. This was more than likely due to only a few people having the needed operating system. Once they passed or died, the rest of the pre-humans reverted back to instinct.
What needed to evolve and stick, for civilization to stick, was a secondary center of consciousness; ego, that could exist apart from instinct, and even override it. The bible calls this free will and choice when speaking of Adam and Eve. They had the new operating system, that made these humans different from the animals. I call the science based humans, before civilization, the pre-human in terms of the brain's operating system. They were human looking animals, but without a stable secondary center of consciousness for will and choice.
In the story of Cain and Abel, after Cain kills Abel, God threatens to expel him. Cain laments that whomever shall come upon him shall kill him. The question is who were these whomever, if Adam and Eve were the first humans and they only had one son, left? These whomever were the prehuman or the animal man.
Abel was the herder of animals; migratory prehuman, and Cain was a tiller of soil; farmer. This symbolism of killing Abel, shows farming superseding migratory herding; modern civilization appears. It also show this was not connected to DNA, entirely, since Abel retained his animal prehuman nature; migratory herder. Cain is given a talisman for protection from the pre-human friends of Abel. Cain goes on to reproduce with prehuman females ,since they had the same human DNA. Cain had the new operating system, and would pass this on to his children through teaching and nurture. He forms other cultures.
The one invention that appears to have been key to the needed upgrade in the operating system of the human brain, beyond the genetic nature of the pre-human, was the invention of writing and the alphabet. This invention is dated by science to be about 6000 years ago, which is also the bible estimate for the change in man. In the beginning was word and word was God. In the beginning refers to the new man with the new operating system. He was changed by the word, God.
What writing did was create a repression of natural instinct, that could also override the brain's natural instinct to forward integrate memory and experiences. Before writing, there was only spoken language. One had to learn from word of mouth. There were no study materials connected to writing; note taking and books.
This type of learning would not be reliable over the longer term. Civilization could start up, via inventors, but it would abort as the new generations forget how to maintain the critical things. Once writing appears, there is a way to review and override the natural inertia of memory. Civilization could stick.
Some early writing applications, like the original rules of good and evil, could over stay their welcome. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a pivotal application of the invention of writing. Knowledge needs to evolve, but some early writing; like law, could cause knowledge to stagnate and become repressive; carved into stone. This may have been needed to spread the secondary to the entire population. As it is written so it shall be done.
