My pup has howled (to music or strange sounds) since she was a young puppy. I love it and often encourage a howling session either by singing or howling myself.

We went to obedience training on Tuesday and a young pup was barking and the high pitch set my girl off, who set another dog off, who set off the dogs in the boarding kennel next door. We were all treated to a cacaphony of howling for a few minutes, which the other class members thought was hilarious - thank goodness!

Is it common for labs to howl? Are there other howling labs out there and how could I put it on cue?

I had a field boy, a rescue, who used to howl to trumpet music--we have three trumpeters at our house. At first I thought it was a painful response (like mine!) to an elementary school boy's attempts to learn to play the horn, and I made my son go into his room and close the door to practice. The dog followed and sat outside the door. He wanted a duet on certain numbers, and so we have photos of him next to the music stand and musician. It was not a good howl like a Siberian's or even a Beagle's, but it was his singing. He sang for years until laryngeal paralysis combined with a probable hemangiosarcoma vining around from his liver up around his heart and in his throat made it hard for him to sing/howl, even with chemo. (It was too late for surgery by the time it was diagnosed.)

I now have a homebred talker and singer who will hum and "AARRR" along with the baritone humans in my house and match pitches as they do practice scales, if the humans sing the scales slowly. It is like tuning a vocal orchestra. Pretty funny. He does not howl but sometimes almost yodels when happy and excited, in a not very musical way. I prefer his pitch-matching hums!

Yes mine do it sometimes...but at 2AM in the morning.UGGH

Yes, we have those kind of sessions at our house too sometimes!

yes, I've got some...to my chagrin! unlike yourself, I find it very annoying, LOL!

We had a 9 week old black boy who howled in every tunnel between Lausanne and Northern Germany (and there are a lot, some very long) as a puppy. He was named Blues Singer after that trip, as his voice became hoarse by the time we got back home, and resembled a blues singer after his third pack of cigarettes. A fabulous dog!!

I live about 4 houses down from our local fire house, which still uses the old-time fire whistle. All my dogs howl at the whistle (which often sounds multiple times per week, all hours of the day), whether out in the yard or in the house LOL.

I've got a wise-guy in my pack. The young boys annoy my old bitch, so she barks at him. Then my troublemaker lets out a howl, and before you know it, all 6 are in a good hearty pack howl. Usually happens at least once a day, unfortunately around 6AM.

We had our gang howl on cue, when our chocolate male lead the chorus, whenever we would pull in the driveway, until we walked in and said "enough". Well, about 4 or 5 months ago, we let him live with a family nearby, so he had his own 9 year old boy to love, and he can still visit the ladies here in future. Well, it dawned on me the other day that we never hear the chorus anymore, now that "Elvis" has left the building.

That's cute. Glad you'll be keeping those howling genes going in the future!

Thanks for your kind words. We're extremely happy with his conformation and clearances, he easily attained his Ch. We have used him once, and were thrilled with our keeper and will gladly use him in the future. He's never "barked" a day in his life and leads in a brief chorus when we pulled into the driveway and always stopped immediately on command. You bet I'll use him in future! :)

Yes...ours do regularly every day. My youngest girl was with handler Sue Whaley for a couple of months. Sue breeds English Foxhounds. Ziva learned how to howl properly!

Here's our latest video of the crew...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miKcqK8RzRA&sns=em


Enjoy! My husband gets a kick out of doing these videos...

Sue Puff