>>33267425And the anime was clearly preparing for this for quite a while because of burr event mon promotion hurr. When Rockruff was given to Ash, its actual origins weren't told, meaning it could have gone through several battles (Litten, who might as well have gone through the same, like defending big doges' life or fighting for other stuff)
Don't forget Rowlet seems to have just hatched from its egg quite recently (before it met Ash) compared to the rest and already has some battle skills despite having been born just now. So anything can happen. If it doesn't evolve now, it will eventually (unless the writers decided not to).
