ah yes, some of the many mysteries of life... will they study why they GROWL now???
Posted on 04/24/2014 4:35:17 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Whether a woof, ruff, yip, or yap, dogs bark dozens, if not hundreds, of times each day. Imagine if every pet canine in the U.S. -- all 83.3 million of them -- congregated. The chorus would be a postal worker's nightmare.
Dogs sound off in almost any situation. Maybe the doorbell rang, or a stranger approached, or a bird fluttered nearby. Even with little to no obvious stimulation, dogs can bark incessantly. Behaviorist and biologist Raymond Coppinger once observed a dog that barked for seven hours straight, even though no other canines were within miles.
Because dogs bark repetitively and in varying contexts, for decades, a hefty chunk of scientists argued that these sounds served no specific purpose. Coppinger, for example, put forth the notion that barking relieves arousal, and merely indicates an emotional state. At the turn of the century, however, these views started to evaporate. A key clue came in 2002. UC-Davis animal scientist Sophia Yin recorded the barks of different breeds of dogs at play, when the doorbell rang, or in isolation. She found that bark frequency and duration differed significantly between the situations.
"The fact that barks were context specific... strongly suggests that barks serve specific functions," she reasoned.
For all the barking the dogs do, their closest relatives, wolves, rarely bark at all. As little as 2.3% of their vocalizations are barks; the rest are almost entirely howls. Moreover, wolves bark only in warning, defense, and protest. Even though 30,000 years of evolution separate the two species, many breeds of dogs look quite similar to their lupine cousins. But the sounds they make are easily discernible.
Taking note of this contrast, Hungarian ethologist Csaba Molnar forayed into the barking discussion, postulating that the bark came to prominence through the process of domestication, in essence, as a way to communicate with humans.
In 2005, Molnar presented evidence to back his assertion. Molnar had 36 subjects listen to a variety of barks from a breed called mudis. The barks were recorded during different situations: when the mudis encountered a stranger, acted aggressively, were prompted to go on a walk, begged for a ball, played, or were left alone. Regardless of whether or not the subjects were dog owners, they were able to guess the situations in which the barks were recorded at levels significantly higher than chance when presented with the choices.
Further evidence backing Molnar's theory came courtesy of Dmitry Belyaev's domestication experiments on silver foxes. For years, researchers selected the most docile foxes that showed the least fear of humans and bred them. Over the generations, the foxes began to sport characteristics like spotted coats, floppy ears, and curled tails. They also began barking a lot more, specifically when they saw people!
It might be presumptuous to think that barking evolved on our account, but right now, it's the most plausible explanation we have!
Gary Larson did a study of the different types of dog bark. He discovered that they all mean, “Hey!”
talking about dogs here.
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...
“Hi, Yortuk. Hi, Georg. Sorry we’re late.”
Dude, send me a new keyboard, LOL!
Hmmm . . . it does make sense.
I was hoping someone would catch that SNL reference :)
Haven’t you ever seen Dora?
The fox says “Awwwwww Mannnnnn”
"Hi, Yortuk. Hi, Georg. Sorry we're late."
But that's only American foxes.
Someday, Swiper is going to “go native” and bite Boots.
“Now are the fox ezzz!”
Dogs can hear other dogs barking miles away. Their hearing is phenomenal. My dog “talks” to other dogs at night. I just can’t hear the responses.
We like to get our dog howling when he starts barking at us. His barks are loud and go right through you. So we’ll start howling, and he’ll join in. Then he forgets what he was barking about.
The Dog - best early warning alarm system ever.
Holy Crap! They ARE COMMUNICATING!!! Why does my old lady bitch when I come home at 0330? Why does she scream when she sees a mouse (or a lion for that matter)? Why does my smoke alarm go off if it if its sensor detects smoke?
ah yes, some of the many mysteries of life... will they study why they GROWL now???
will they study why they GROWL now???..... Well it’s generally because I step on FIFi’s tail on the way to the bathroom. FiFi is about a 150 lbs of tail, so it’s hard to step around the big dummy.
LOLOL!!! full blooded Tailhound i take it
The neighbour cat tortures my two girls. The cat will walk along the top of the fence, or sit outside of the closed gate, while the dogs go nuts! There is also a neighbourhood squirrel that does the same thing.
Whenever there is a siren or sirens (my neighbourhood it happens a lot!) and the girls are outside, they both start howling. The moment I open the door,dead silence. If they are inside and hear sirens, they ignore the sirens.
Funny thing, I live close by a glidepath to YYC and sometimes at night, one of the girls ‘warns me’ of an incoming aircraft by growling at it. Of course, ANY movement outside results in my girls exploding in barking. A rough neighbourhood, but I never worry if I forget to lock the doors when I leave.
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