Our Malamute rarely barks, and when he howls it is definitely for specific situations. The barks are pretty much all warning or surprise barks. The howls are pretty rare as well, but those are more for not paying attention to what he wants you to pay attention to, or sometimes just to talk. He will actually try to mimic what you say in his howls sometimes.
My late Golden Retriever NEVER barked unless surprised by a wild animal (deer, turkey) and then it was just a low growl ending in a R-r-f-f. He also didn’t whine. He made his needs known through a bump of a wet nose and pleading brown eyes.
He could bark, however. We took him on a trip to CA where we visited my husband’s sister. He ran around the yard with a Yellow Lab and the two of them barked like crazy at a Schnauzer that they couldn’t see beyond the fence. hen it came time to leave, he got into the back seat and never made another sound for the rest of the trip back to Wisconsin, or afterward.
He had been a rescue, so we don’t know his early life. It could have been that his first owner may have “trained” him with an anti-bark collar. That’s all I can figure.
We surely do miss him. Every day. R.I.P., Max.
I live in a rural area, and my 15 year old Siberian Husky only barks at humans she does not know-she has a different howl for everything else, but not a bark.
If I’m taking her out late at night, and coyotes are howling, she will sit down, howl back and stubbornly resist any attempt to bring her back inside while doing a complaint howl that is doggie bitching. She especially likes to do this on the coldest nights in winter, when she is happy in her layers of fur and I’m turning blue at the other end of the leash...