Re: Not a very silent night at The Hideout
Found this FYI on line-<br />Why do dogs howl?<br />Although we domestic dogs bark more than our wolf ancestors, we howl less. The reason is the difference in our social lives. The purpose of the howl is to synchronize and assemble the pack for action such as going off on a hunt for food. Since -- if we're lucky -- this need doesn't occur with domestic dogs, there may only be a few times when we feel the instinct to howl. When we're forcibly shut away from our human family -- we hate that -- then we may perform the "howl of loneliness" which has the same function as the group howling. Both say: "I am here . . . where are you? . . . come join me." In the wild this howling would attract other members of the pack like a magnet, so if our human pack fails to respond to the howling dog, we find that difficult to understand. Those of us who live in the heart of a caring human family are simply not stimulated to howl.<br /><br />There is one amusing exception to this explanation which concerns musical families. If the family is singing, many of us will mistake this as a signal that our owners are trying to "draw the pack together" and will enthusiastically answer this call by howling along with the rest of our pack. Kind of fun actually!