Howling

[Silver]

What causes them to howl?

My friend, who lives below me, just called me and said Thunder is the one who she heard howling during the day. She confirmed it today, she had suspicions, but there are a lot of dogs around my house, couldn't tell for sure.

What could cause him to howl? Do I need to do anything?

[Bruce Lanthier]

I posted this a long time ago and figured I would repost it instead of searching. Keep in mind it is only this persons opinion, there may be others out there.

Why Do Dogs Howl from the book Dogwatching by Desmond Morris. Printed by Three Rivers Press, text copyright ,Desmond Morris 1986.



Although dogs bark more than wolves, they howl less. The reason for the comparative rarity of dog howling is the difference in the social life of the domestic dog and the wild wolf. The function of the howl is to synchronize and assemble the pack for action. Wolves howl most in the early evening before departing on a group hunt and in the early morning before setting off once again. Domestic dogs, with their food presented to them by their owners, live a life of perpetual puppydom, and the need to "reinforce pack cohesion"(to give howling its official function) is not one of their priorities. The pack-scattering that provokes howling rarely occurs among them. The only time that something like it intrudes on the daily routine of the domestic dog is when an animal is forcibly shut away on its own. It may then perform the "howl of loneliness," which has the same function as group howling. Both say: "I (we) are here . . . where are you? ...come and join me (us)." In the wild the effect of this howling is to attract the other members of the pack like a magnet, and to induce them to join in the "song of the tribe." Humans who fail to respond to a howling dog by not "joining it" are derelict in their canine duty.
Some male dogs that never howl under normal circumstances are known to do so with prolonged and heartbreakingly forlorn tones when they are firmly shut away from an attractive bitch in heat. This does not mean that howling is a sexual signal, merely that this is yet another social context in which the basic message is "join me."
So powerful is this message of howling that human fieldworkers have been able to employ fake howling to catch young wolf-cubs. Sitting in a tree and imitating the howling of adult wolves is sometimes sufficient to bring the small cubs tottering out to join the howlers. Older wolves refuse to be fooled by this strategy, however, which reveals an important extra element in the message of the call. As they mature, each wolf comes to recognize the individual identity of the howler. Even the human fieldworkers themselves can identify the different members of the pack they are studying in this way. There are slight variations in the singsong sequence of the howling, which become personal signature tunes. So the message is "It is me, come and join me." The full message may give even more detail. Some wolf experts believe that each howling also transmits information about the precise mood of the howlers, as they throw back their heads and give mournful voice. And because howling is more common at the borders of a pack¡¦s territory, it would seem that there is also an element of territorial display involved, letting other groups know that a particular zone is occupied and contains an organized band.
It is significant that solitary wolves (ones that have been driven out of the pack) do not join in the group howlings from their distant corners. Nor do they try to rejoin their original pack. But they do howl on their own from time to time, when the rest of the pack is quiet. If they are answered by other wolf outcasts, this enables them to join up and start a new pack in some other, unoccupied territory.
Returning to the domestic dog, it is clear why they are less prone to howling than their wild cousins. The appropriate social contexts are not there to provoke it. If pet dogs were kept in large groups that had the semblance of pack organization, howling would undoubtedly recur, as it does in some professional kennels. Also, if dogs are shut in alone, or kept from bitches in heat, or if they are thrown out to become lonely stray dogs, they may howl. But the adult domestic dog that lives in the heart of a caring human family is simply not stimulated to produce this most haunting of all canine cries.
There is one amusing exception to this last statement and that concerns musical families. In pre-television days, when families indulged in evening singsongs, certain pet dogs mistook the signals and assumed that their owners were trying to ¡§draw the pack together for concerted effort.¡¨ Enthusiastically answering the call to hunt by throwing back their heads and howling along with the rest of the adopted pack, they must have been nonplussed by the negative reactions this produced.

[wfortur]

Very interesting post on why dogs howl.

My Rottie, Samspon, hardly ever barks but he howls almost daily when he hears the volunterr fire department sirens a few blocks away. I think it is quite amusing.....

I won't even ask why he doesn't bark much - I am glad he doesn't - who needs complaints from neighbors?

[mmgy]

I thoroughly enjoyed your reprint about howling, and I appreciate the constant education which I receive here every day, but it doesn't explain my dogs' howling either. All it takes is a siren, police, fire, or medic, and my dogs, spread across our property, take it up. Howling comes from the backyard, side yard, upstairs, downstairs, or in the basement, every single dog chimes in. My only thought is that where we used to live, we only heard sirens once or twice a year. They were far away, and probably sounded like lost lonely wolves. Eight years ago we moved to this house, on the state highway that is the only way in and out of town, and sirens pass our house nearly hourly. The older dogs have taught the newer dogs, and so I guess the cycle is set. Either way, it's music to my ears;) !

Mary Mac

[wfortur]

I found this article interesting....

Given the dog's incredible range of hearing as well as sensitivity, it's reasonable to assume that certain sounds could cause the dog pain. However, a dog in pain wouldn't sit and howl merrily away as dogs who howl in response to music or sirens almost invariably do. Instead, the dog would make every attempt either to get away from the sound or attack its source. Because of this, it seems safe to say that Willy is communicating something else with his howling. But what?

Although the study of animal communication remains in its infancy, we do know that three factors influence the quality of a particular species's communication:

The specie's sensory capacity
Its social structure
The make-up of its surrounding biological community

The more highly developed these factors, the more sophisticated the species' communication. Let's apply these criteria to Willy's musical howling and see what they can tell us.

In order to communicate, you need to be able to detect another's presence and any signals they might send to communicate with you. Because sound triggered Willy's howling, his hearing merits attention. Does the level of development of this canine sense make Willy a good prospect for interspecies communication, and specifically that with humans? Absolutely. Dogs dwell in a world filled with sounds beyond human comprehension. In addition to hearing sounds at pitches that exceed the high end of the human spectrum, they're also much more sensitive to the intensity of sounds than we are. A sound owners lose track of beyond 20 feet may still attract their dogs. Put another way, Willy can easily hear any sound messages communicated by his owners.

However, just because humans and animals can detect a common range of reasonably complex sensory data doesn't mean that they'll want to communicate. In order to do that, they must enjoy being around each other, too. This brings us to factor two, social structure. Both Willy and his owners belong to species possessing a strong social instinct. Not only do we and dogs enjoy being around our own kind, we'll more readily add members of different species to our packs or families than more solitary species, too. Additionally, as social species whose members need to keep in contact with each other for a wide variety of reasons, both humans and dogs commonly use vocal signals to communicate.

Once we put dog and human together, what role does the environment play? Studies of wild animals indicate that members of different species who live together in more complex environments develop more complex forms of communication than those who live more simple lives. Even more intriguing, other studies indicate that a fundamental interspecies "language" exists. Based on frequency and duration, scientists have categorize animal vocalizations into three groups: the growl, the bark, and the whine. Sounds in the same range made by different mammals, including humans, and birds, correlate with the same emotion or mood. For example, the bark consists of a tone that rises then falls in pitch, creating a specific pattern that indicates interest or curiosity. When a recording of a Carolina wren chirping that same pattern is played slowly, it sounds remarkably like the bark of a small dog, while that same pattern in human language comes out, "Wow."

Given the dog's and our sensory compatibility, our social natures, and our often complex environments with their musical instruments and other forms of communication, it would seem well within our dog's capacity to seek different ways to communicate with us in our own "language," too. When we add the awareness that interspecies communication similarities exist, Willy's howls take on a whole new dimension. Does the trumpet's note reverberate through him and awaken primal memories of ancient moonlit nights when his wild ancestors bared their souls in their own species-specific language? Or does that trumpet call with its unique pattern urge Willy, "Howl along with me as loudly as you can!" in that primitive interspecies-language we're only beginning to comprehend?

Although the idea that something as seemingly unrelated as a particular note played by a particular instrument might trigger our dogs to communicate with us might seem more like magic than science, as we learn more about animal communication we may discover that a little bit of Dr. Doolittle lurks in us all.

....I'm still glad my dog doesn't bark much and his howl is less annoying and more enjoyable to my ears -- Regina

[Stace]

Very interesting articles, but nothing that really answers my question. He goes to the basement on his own and is free to come back to our bedroom at anytime - so he'd not shut away on his own. There are no bitches in the area and it's at night, w/out sirens - at least that I am able to hear.

[RottnByrd]

Dakota will only Howl at sirens and only Fire truck sirens at that. I had always assumed that the howling meant she was in somekind of pain so I would get very upset when she did it. Now that I know she is not in pain I feel better. On the other hand, whenever my cell phone goes off Dakota starts to cry, could the sound of my cell phone maybe hurt her ears?

[Bruce Lanthier]

Originally posted by Stace
Very interesting articles, but nothing that really answers my question. He goes to the basement on his own and is free to come back to our bedroom at anytime - so he'd not shut away on his own. There are no bitches in the area and it's at night, w/out sirens - at least that I am able to hear.

The articles are not supposed to address the whys and wherefors of a specific dog but maybe give you enough information to answer it yourself. Maybe he is howling just to see whats out there?