Howling among wolves serves an interesting function -- the distant wolf pack within earshot gets the picture -- this is another pack's territory. And they further deduce the size of the individual members of the howling pack by virtue of the lowness of pitch in the howl...

...just as they deduce the size of male wolves by how high up the tree the wolf has made his urine marking.

As someone up thread pointed out, an apt description of domesticating wolves into dogs is a selective breeding that focuses on the puppy behavior. Domestic dogs are, relative to wild dogs, always puppies. Just as wolf pups imitate but do not engage in adult wolf behavior, many of the behaviors of wild dogs are echoed in domestic dogs, and sometimes for "puppy" reasons.