Considering that if you take very young wolves and raise them as if they were dogs they fail to acquire anywhere near the understanding of human emotions, gestures, and non-verbal clues that dogs acquire, it seems pretty clear that there is something built-in to dogs at play here.

Keep in mind that humans have lived in a very close, symbiotic relation with dogs for a very long time. It's at least 20k years, with some indications the relationship could go back 100k years.

It may have even been the advantage dogs gave us that let us win out over rivals such as neanderthals.