Origin

The evolution of wolves is not totally clear, but many people believe the wolves evolved from primative carnivores called Miacids, which evolved from insectivores. Miacids apeared about fifty two million years ago and were from about gopher to dog sized. A direct decendant of Miacids is Vivverids, a group including civets and genets.
The first canid was a Dawn-wolf, which looked like an elongated fox, that lived in trees.

How dogs came into being

Early humans were followed by wolf like creatures, which scavanged remains, and in time they became dogs. The dogs learned to hunt with the humans and herd animals like sheep and cattle. They also became gaurd animals too.

Pack life

A wolf pack can range from eight to fifteen wolves, within a range of six to six-hundred miles. A pack has an Alpha female, and an Alpha male (also known as the Alphena and Alpha) are usually the oldest wolves wolves in the pack, and are the parents of most other members. They are not leaders in the way humans would be, they just have more choice were to go and what to do, and the others usually follow.
The Beta wolf or wolves are second in command and have slightly less control what to do than the Alphas.
Other wolves are between Beta and Omega, and are the wolves that fill the gap.
The Omega or Omegas are at the bottom of the pile. They are usually pup-sitters and more pup than wolf themselves. They are the wolves that get the most aggession towards them and if it gets too bad they may even leave the pack and become a lone wolf.
Sometimes a lone wolf will meet another lone wolf of opposite gender and they will start a new pack, but many stay lone wolves.
The Alphas usually mate with each other, but occasionly, if the alphas are too closely related, they will mate with a lower ranking wolf.
Usually only the Alphas will be able to raise pups, and even if other wolves do breed it is very likely they won't have the resources to raise pups to maturity.