Dog/human duet
More dog vocalization, this time with human participation:
We’re all humans here, so we all know what the baby is doing. But what is the dog doing?
I’ve watched this video several times, studying the dog’s body language, and I’m just not sure what she’s thinking. I’ve never lived with a Siberian Husky, so I don’t know what all that stuff means. Is this a chorus howl? It looks to me like she’s focused on Mom and Dad, and she’s obviously echoing the baby. But why?
One thing is clear: this video is, I think, conclusive evidence that Siberian Huskies are part parrot. So much for cladistics.
21 Responses to “Dog/human duet”
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LabRat says:
She’s not howling, people who live with Nordic breeds call that “talking”. It’s another class of vocalizations that seems to cover a lot of ground. My dogs make noises like that to greet people they consider special friends, to make requests or demands, to complain about something, as part of an invitation to play, as a sound of contentment, or just general commentary.
Possibilities that come to mind…
a)The dog is complaining about the baby, to the people behind the camera. My adult male will often bitch like that to me when the puppy is being obnoxious, hoping that I will deal with it rather than him having to. He sounds a lot more blatantly aggrieved than this dog does, but maybe that’s just because I know him.
b)The dog is competing for attention with the baby. You’re going to sit there and babble? So am I! I’m just as cute! Sibes are big hams.
c)The dog is asking/demanding that the baby gate we see visible in the background at the very end be removed so she/the baby can get at the toys we also see behind it.
The dog is definitely focused on the people behind the camera, though what exactly she wants I don’t know. I recognize the “stupid human, not listening to what I am telling you, catch up already” look all too well…
January 10th, 2012 at 6:40 pm EST -
Violet Socks says:
What about the parrot aspect? I mean the mimicry, or at least what seems like a doggish attempt at mimicry. Do you think it’s just coincidence that the dog is making noises that sound just like the baby’s noises?
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LabRat says:
Good example of talking-as-complaining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
I particularly like the unimpressed cat in the background, who has clearly heard it all before.
We will hear this litany sometimes when there is a strange dog/stranger outside somewhere grumpy old man Kodos feels they should not be. He knows if he breaks into a full on “YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN” barking fit like he’d like to, he will be told to be quiet and go to his place, so instead he mixes quieter short barks with vocal moaning about the unfairness of the situation in general. If told to place anyway he will sit behind me and continue to grumble and complain without the barking. It’s directed at us, not the other dog as the barking is.
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LabRat says:
Simulpost… I’m not sure. I’ve heard Sibe conversation that sounded just like that without a baby present, but there definitely seems to be some sort of call-and-response going on there. I do know we taught baby Tank to growl on command by growling playfully at him and waiting for him to try doing it back. (He loves this game.)
Is the dog trying to sound like the baby, trying to make the dog-analagous noise as the baby, and how much is mimicry limited by canine vocal structure vs. just being sound-making buddies?
I actually have no idea. I just know that after living with smart dogs I give them a hell of a lot more credit for having at least a basic theory of mind than is currently scientifically acknowledged.
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Violet Socks says:
What a coincidence — I was just looking at that Akita video when I came back here and saw your comment.
One reason I’m fascinated by this “talking” is because Molly would do that occasionally as part of her suite of alarm vocalizations. She was a purebred little Sheltie, but somewhere in her genome she had the goods for that talky thing. But it mostly only happened when the threatening noise she was responding to had awakened her from a nap. Her alarm bark would morph into a wow-wow-wow — that talking thing. It always sounded hilarious.
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Toonces says:
I do think it’s mimicry and I have seen Huskies do it more than other dogs. Usually you can get them to do this back and forth with you after they start (then you mimic, then they do, etc.). I don’t know that every dog sound means something — I’m pretty sure my dog experiments with his own sounds and barks (terrier) and is basically just using it as a way of entertaining himself.
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Violet Socks says:
More evidence for the parrot theory:
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Catherine D. says:
I’ve lived with lots of Keeshonden (another Nordic breed), and they defintely like call and response howling. Unfortunately, the current resident decided to sing along with the local coyote pack in the wee hours the other night …
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Lorna Youngs says:
My family had a Spitz/collie mix that would “sing” to “The Lonely Goat Herd” from The Sound of Music. Interestingly, she sang in a higher register when she sang with Julie Andrews, but in a lower register when she sang with Mary Martin. I always thought that the “yodeling” bothered her ears.
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Val says:
That Husky is just barely tolerating the baby – she is beseeching “her” adults to let her LEAVE…
I don’t trust Huskies w/small children.
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RadFemPornBasher says:
I’ve had 3 Huskies at a time, my eldest passed away a fee years ago. I’ve still got the other two- one is 17! (Huskies live longer than other large dogs, usually.)
All my Huskies do this. They have very distinctive voices, as well. I had 6 dogs for a number of years, and I used to give them a “daily howl,” where I would start the howling and the dogs would join in. That included a Pekingese- the female (and supreme top dogs- any dog in trouble with me would lie down so she was able to climb on them and she’d bite their necks and shake, disciplining the others in a way that they really responded to), a generic dog, 3 Huskies, and my half Husky/half Rottweiler (she’s a ‘rotten Husky’). I could identify each Husky with my eyes closed.
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cherrypicker says:
sooo cute! annd… our dogs used to look at us funny sometimes, if one of us had a camera to our face, continuously for a while, it would freak our dogs out and they would start getting kind of whiny and ears-flat-y and so on. so maybe the dog thought the baby was complaining about that too and wanted to join in?
(this worried look would happen also if we wore masks, or started making strange noises, or just acted a bit abnormally)
wondering if anyone else has had that experience?
okay going back to look at cute video again yay! -
Violet Socks says:
That Husky is just barely tolerating the baby
Yeah. When I wrote this post I thought about going into more detail about my interpretations, but decided to just keep it minimal and see what people had to say. I don’t know from Huskies, so I’m just not sure what’s going on. But what struck me is that if I were just hearing the audio of this, my reaction would be different from watching the video. Listening to the audio, it sounds like a kind of group sing, with the dog echoing the baby. Let’s make noise! But watching the video, the dog’s body language looks to me like she’s rather annoyed and she wants Mom and Dad to do something. It even looks like she’s trying to drown out the baby, like STFU. But then that doesn’t explain why she’s mimicking the baby (if indeed that’s what she’s doing).
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Violet Socks says:
By the way, YouTube is full of videos of Huskies and other Nordic breeds “talking” up a storm. Wow, I had no idea.
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Toonces says:
My dog also gets weird around cameras. I want him to look at me, or stay in positions, so he looks or walks away, of course. He seems to know he is on display and he doesn’t like that I act different with the camera.
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monchichipox says:
Most of it is just the fact that huskies are blabber mouths. Aside from that my take on the video would be not that the dog is barely tolerating the baby but the dog doesn’t like the baby(pup) being alone there on the hardwood floor and clear wants it in the play pen area.
Hearing this howling though it brought to mind a Christmas tradition I had to pass on this year because of the death of my dog. That was talking to her through the wrapping paper tube. She hated it and it was the only thing that clearly made her angry. It was all done for my amusement. As much as I loved her I could never pass it up.
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LabRat says:
The dog definitely wants *something* from the humans doing the filming, but it’s hard to tell exactly what.
My girl Kang is by miles the smartest dog I’ve ever owned, and among the downsides of that is that sometimes it’s clear, looking into her eyes, that she thinks I’m not very bright. She’ll be “talking” and gesturing at me, trying to get me to understand what she wants from me, and I may or may not figure it out before she gives up in obvious disgust…
This dog reminds me of her. :P
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Nessum says:
Thanks for reminding me Catherine D.! Untill you mentioned your Keeshond I had totally forgotten that as a young teenager I dreamt of getting one. Is it any wonder? Aaaww …
I even picked a name for her/him in advance: Nainsook, which means Eye’s Delight – and is it ever! Eventually got a Cocker Spaniel instead. Loved it to pieces … and forgot about the Keeshond; untill now that is. Ah, memories. :-)
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monchichipox says:
I had never heard of the keeshond breed. It is a beauty. Reminds me of a Chao-chou a little. My mother had a Chao-chou for years and it was the only dog I ever hated. True to its breed it absolutely worshiped my mother but loathed the mere existence of everyone else.
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Ciccina says:
Fantastic!
My purebred bull terrier is stone deaf (from birth, as so many white dogs are) yet she makes a range of vocalizations.
Just recently, at ~5 years of age, she’s started “complaining” to me in that low “rowr-rowr-rowr” manner when my petting is insufficiently vigorous. When she wants to be let out of her crate in the middle of the night for a drink, its a high pitched plaintive wail. Absence of petting begets a series of short, explosive barks (by contrast, withholding of food gets a nip on the ass or thigh if I am sitting or dragging on the hem of the pants if standing). And this is completely from her startled-out-of-a-nap aggressive barking, which is ferocious, continuous and scary as all hell to the uninitiated.
Why a deaf dog with no opportunity to imitate would make so many different noises intrigues me. It can’t all be trial and error learning (her learning what motivates me), can it?
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Violet, I am so so very sorry to hear about Mollie passing. My heart goes out to you.
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Teresainpa says:
I was going to say that she is the baby’s translator. But I think it is more likely that she is asking for some one to tend to the baby as it is getting on her nerves and she is tired of tending it.
