SMBC Comics Forum

Two of my extremely spoiled Dachshunds (Link and Pixie). I have a third that I was recently a foster fail for, but I took this before she joined us.

I will asume that is your beautifully painted toenail.

Yes that is my painted toenail haha. They love to sleep either on or squished up to me. The female (Black/Tan) mostly to steal body warmth, the male (Red/Boar) because he can't bear to not be with someone at all times. He is very sweet but pretty needy as well.

This here is my sisters dog, but I'm minding him all the time anyway. I had to dress him up for Gishwhes reasons. He was not a fan.

Yessssssssss

I saw it on tumblr, and I'm glad to see it again. Phenomenal work on the weird dino-head thing!

Question for you dog owners (past and present):

Did/does your dog howl? How often and under what circumstances?

I ask because both of our family dogs have howled under various circumstances (I'll elaborate later if I remember), but I can't say I've ever heard of this being a regular thing with other dogs. (With the exception of those with huskies, as that breed is known more for howling than barking.)

I don't remember any of my dogs ever howling. It's possible they did, but it must have been rare.

Fun fact: only dogs bark! It's an entirely domesticated trait, as dogs need a way to communicate with humans. It doesn't count as language, though.

Did you know that domesticated foxes exist? It didn't take long to domesticate them, either; Soviet scientists only started to domesticate foxes in the '50s.

Our corgi never howled, although he would try when he heard another dog doing it, but would quickly revert to barking. It is probably breed specific. Basenjis, one of the oldest breeds, don't bark and instead do a weird yodel supposedly due to an oddly shaped larynx.

DonRetrasado wrote:I don't remember any of my dogs ever howling. It's possible they did, but it must have been rare.

Fun fact: only dogs bark! It's an entirely domesticated trait, as dogs need a way to communicate with humans. It doesn't count as language, though.

Did you know that domesticated foxes exist? It didn't take long to domesticate them, either; Soviet scientists only started to domesticate foxes in the '50s.

I remember reading about the fox domestication program in Nat Geo. They selectively bred foxes for docile, nurturing traits for eventual domestication, but they also experimented with breeding foxes that were the complete opposite. The problem with the foxes bred for aggression is that a few generations in, the females would not let their young feed on her milk. So the scientists had to retrieve the pups as infants and keep them in the care of the more nurturing foxes until they were old enough to feed themselves. Their work helped them find what genes were responsible for making fox domestication possible. It was pretty fascinating, if a little nuts.

Lethal Interjection wrote:Question for you dog owners (past and present):

Did/does your dog howl? How often and under what circumstances?

I ask because both of our family dogs have howled under various circumstances (I'll elaborate later if I remember), but I can't say I've ever heard of this being a regular thing with other dogs. (With the exception of those with huskies, as that breed is known more for howling than barking.)

My Mum's dog (Jack Russell) howls whenever he hears sirens. I don't think I've heard him howl in any other circumstance, but that one is pretty consistent.

None of the dogs I know have ever howled. My mums barks at the moon, randomly and only when it's full (I think she thinks it's a car or an airplane or hot air ballon).

I think howling is a trait they learn off each other more often than not, so if one of yours did it the other probably copied. But I'm no dog expert.

Ed: Thanks, that dino head thing took many hours, and it fits a human head. I have made everyone entering my house try it on these last few days. It's good to be evil.

Thanks guys. You are confirming my general hypothesis. I shall now post it in a larger sample size (Facebook) and see if it continues to be the rarity that I assumed it would.

Kimra wrote:I think howling is a trait they learn off each other more often than not, so if one of yours did it the other probably copied. But I'm no dog expert.

It couldn't be learned, in this case. As this explanation of each dog's howling will explain.

Rebel was our first dog. Got him in the spring of '95 (he was a pup of a few months), and we put him down in the spring of '05. His mom was a very young (a year when she got pregnant) purebred German Shepherd. Anyways, he would howl when my sister would practice the flute, but only when she hit particular notes. So if she had to play a piece which had longer portions in a particular range, he would start howling. This was pretty delightful and endearing, and turned into a party trick of sorts. This would've started in our first few years with him, as that was when band was a prerequisite for my sis. It continued on because my sister had gotten a second-hand flute during those years. She didn't keep it up, but would occasionally take it out just to get Rebel howling.

Nezzie is the dog my dad got my mom for a birthday present last year (almost exactly a year ago). A Shih-Tzu who was only a few months old when they got her (hence no learning from the other, as there is a decade between their lives). This dog got to a point where she got ridiculously excited at recognizable visitors (first my sister and eventually me). At one point my sister ended up mimicking Nezzie's excited yipping, and perhaps turned it into a howl (I was not present), to which Nezzie also started howling. As of this past Christmas, Nezzie would only howl for my sister. However, upon this visit to my parents', where my sister was visiting her husband, I started howling and Nezzie followed suit. I strongly suspect that this is because of inadvertent training (our howling and subsequent delight at Nezzie joining in).

So basically my hypothesis is two-fold.
First, that the howling of domestic dogs is quite rare. Primarily backed up by a lack of anecdotal evidence.
And the second being that it is probably due to a tonal trigger when it does happen. Started by Rebel's very selective howling, backed up by increasing sources of anecdotal howling. Those anecdotes are thusfar:
1. Nezzie howling for my sister and not for others. I presumed it was vocal range at the time, and even though it has since grown to others I remain confident that those incidences are based on inadvertent training.
2. Apoc's story of the Jack Russel responding to sirens.
3. My cousin's story of piano playing inducing howling in his friend's dog, though I gather that this is also a mix of initial reaction to pitch and subsequent inadvertent training.
4. Another story of my cousin's dog howling at passing trains. Though this is based on an as yet unconfirmed suspicion that it was because (or at least started by) the train whistle.

SCIENTIFIC METHOD! Not really...

They are my Silmarils.

I have 3 Dachshunds and one will start to bark then the other two join in then they try to out do each other until it escalates into a full out howl. Two straight out howl and one does more of a howl bark. If they are domesticating Foxes I would like to put my order in now for a Canadian Marbled Fox.