Sirens and Howls

[runscott]

Good morning.

Earlier I was drinking my coffee, smoking my pipe, and pondering a question that I have ask myself a time or two over the last several years. What ever happened to dogs howling at police and emergency vehicle sirens? When I was a lad growing up in Houston, every time a siren could be heard every dog in the neighborhood started howling, including my own. Now days a siren goes off and our dogs just lay there like nothing happened. Nor do I hear any other dogs in our vicinity start to howl at the sirens.

I figured somehow sirens have changed since I was a boy, but how, why?

Your thoughts on this observation are quite welcome!

Cheers!

Interesting thought. I grew up in a small town in Texas - we had few sirens and even fewer dogs. The few dogs were typically staked out far enough to reach anyone who walked in their yard. We left them alone. I can't remember ever seeing anyone walking a dog until I moved to Houston in the early 1980's.

When I moved to Seattle, we started off living near the Belltown fire station. A truck would pass in front of my 1st-story window almost every night, siren wailing. My dog (Rhodesian Ridgeback) would always jump up, as would I, but she never barked. One night when it woke me up, I noticed my dog snoring through the siren. After that I didn't wake up either. I live in a suburb now, but we have plenty of wailing fire engines. No response from the dogs, that I can remember, but now I'll probably pay attention.

So my guess would be that if it happens enough, the dogs ignore it, just like the paperboy, unless they are trained to react.

(I love talking about dogs )