Fckdisaccnt t1_j8fuvah wrote
Reply to comment by marketrent in Upon hearing recordings of wolf howls, older family dogs from more ancient breeds respond with longer howls — suggesting that genetic similarity with wolves affects dogs’ repertoire by marketrent
>>“Additionally, we found that breeds which howl more also show more stress-related behaviours in this situation. We assume that more ancient breeds, which are genetically closer to wolves, can process the information encoded in wolf howls better than modern breeds.
So the hypothesis is that these dogs are more stressed out by wolf howls because they understand what they are saying?
Merry-Lane t1_j8hv8cm wrote
The wolves howl to say : "whoever hears this, you are on our territory".
Dogs and wolves respect boundaries, and can be stressed simply at the idea of being on the territory that another dog/wolf claims.
Howls don’t have a meaning as in "a short yap followed by a long tremolo means hi". Maybe howls can have significances like wolves may howl a bit differently depending on their mood, the moon, a specific event or whatever. They may share this feeling through their howls, anyone (dogs, humans, animals,…) could maybe interpret specific howls and attribute vague meanings but…
No, dogs stress out because howling is claiming territory.
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