For those of you who know our dog Riley, you know he's pretty much a silent dog. He very rarely barks. Just before Chris and I got married I would wake up in the middle of the night to hear Riley howling in the other room, but it didn't really sound like a howl. It was very high pitched. I thought it was a child crying at first. I was so alarmed that I called Chris in the middle of the night but by the time he picked up the phone Riley had stopped howling. I ran into the living room where Riley was sleeping and he didn't look disturbed. I was baffled until the next night when it happened again. This time I caught Riley in the act. He was still laying down but he had his head thrown back in a howl. I figured out he was howling to sirens, but I didn't realize until later that he was only howling at fire truck sirens. A police car could drive by a few streets away and his ears wouldn't even perk up, but if a firetruck was anywhere in the vicinity he'd let out his howl.
Of course I think this is the greatest thing in the world. I got the idea to download several different siren sounds and try them on him. Only one of them worked--it's a certain pitch that makes him howl It's like he's trying to "match" the pitch and he always starts howling at the same point in the audio clip. So now the highlight of my day is coming home and making Riley howl to this siren noise. Chris is afraid that Riley will eventually get used to the siren and not howl anymore but I literally cry every time he does it because I'm so proud of my little Smokey in the making. I've always wanted Riley to howl on command so when Tennessee makes a touchdown I could make him howl like Smokey...well now I can (it's a bit of a process though!)
