Without the domestication of Growlithe, some believe that mankind today would still be living in caves. It is fire which allowed man to cook food and warm shelters, to defend itself through flaming weapons and keep hostile pokemon away eons before man invented the pokeball and became master of nature itself. And it is Growlithe, a friend to humanity through all ages, which brought fire to Man.
Were fire alone the benefit accrued to mankind by the presence of this pokemon, it would have been far more than enough! But it was not. Growlithe eat Rattata, Zubat, and other vectors of disease so common in the pokemon world. They need little sleep, and while serving as playmates by day, spend the nights guarding the caves which nocturnal pokemon threaten. They naturally sniff out and attack criminals, allowing to this day for the preservation of good government and checking the corruption of the police force. And most importantly, it was through their bonds with Growlithe that man learned the lessons of pokemon training, which he would apply to more and more species until the world itself was his own.
It is no small wonder that, among primitive peoples, Arcanine is far and away the most revered of the gods – for it must have seemed like divine protection that a pokemon like Growlithe was around to help man through its earliest, most trying age.