Social Question

Pandora's avatar

Can a dog scare themselves for howling for the first time?

Asked by Pandora (32206points) July 21st, 2015

My dog is nearly a year old. I’ve had her for 10 months. I’ve heard her bark, growl or whine or yelp. But today she was playing with her squeaky toy and howled a deep howl, like wolf. She is a small mix breed that is probably Chihuahua and french bull dog.
Any how. Right after that she stopped squeaking her toy and laid quietly on it as if in shock. She didn’t even want to play. It took a few minutes but then she was ok. I tried to get her to howl again but she won’t do it. I know dogs sometimes howl with certain high pitch sounds and I think that is what cause her to howl.
But I was wondering if she maybe hurt herself howling, or was just shocked that she could do that?

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14 Answers

Adirondackwannabe's avatar

I don’t think scare themselves as much as they may think what the heck was that the first few times.. I do know wolves howling scares the crap out of coyotes and foxes.

Blueroses's avatar

My little dog learned how to howl when I was babysitting a hound dog. Little one looked so surprised and then did it again, just to see if he could.

Also the same dog would wake himself with a tremendous fart and run away acting offended, so I wouldn’t give him too much credit for thought processes.

Adirondackwannabe's avatar

@Blueroses I love hounds. I was at a site where the spca was displaying a bunch of their animals, and a bluetick came up and camped out on me. My s/o thought it was coming home with us. I’m not there yet.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Yeah, I think so. Dakota once scared herself by barking, really deep and really loud. She was like, “Oh shit! What wazzat??!”

Pandora's avatar

It was the funniest thing. Squeak, squeak, squeak, howl. Freeze.eyes big. and don’t make any movement. Maybe I can figure out where that came from. It couldn’t be me! At least that is how she looked to me.. I thought maybe she was listening to see if another dog nearby made the sound.
@Blueroses LOL. My old dog did that a few times. Like, what the hell! and snort at my husband. He didn’t always make sounds but the smell would offend him.

Dutchess_III's avatar

You guys ever have a dog…. fart (I hate that word,) and then turn around and look at his or her butt like, “WHAT? Did that come outta me? Am I gonna die?”

Blueroses's avatar

@Dutchess_III Why in the world would you hate the word “fart”? Aside from “balls”, it’s the funniest word in the English language!

rojo's avatar

I have a friend who has a little wiener dog named Gus and every time Gus gets excited (and he constantly gets excited) he pees himself and EVERY time he pees himself he has to sit himself down and stare at his pecker; like he can’t believe that thing pissed on him again.

Pandora's avatar

@Dutchess_III I think they wonder if they pooed. LOL

LostInParadise's avatar

What a difference there seems to be in the way that dogs and, I assume, most other animals think. We occasionally act reflexively without conscious awareness of what we are doing, but from the above posts, it seems that dogs act that way all the time.

kritiper's avatar

I think dogs howl (at least sometimes) because they hear a sound that hurts their ears. A dog might startle itself when it’s own howl does just that.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Well, howling is a pack response to perceived howling, and that includes sirens and such. But…they may indeed hurt their ears. :(

RocketGuy's avatar

My dog howled in his sleep, then woke up wondering where the sound came from.

longgone's avatar

[Mod says] Moved to Social with OP’s permission.

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