Are you being kept up late at night because of your “dumb dog” howling for apparently no reason? Are you, through your annoyance, wondering why your dog does this?

If your dog is howling at night, there are a couple of reasons as to why, both being very closely-related.

The first reason is that your dog may be communicating with other dogs nearby, and this is how they are speaking with each other. Don’t even bother straining to hear the other dog. It could be halfway across your neighborhood, and you probably won’t even hear it. Dogs’ hearing is far superior to ours.

The second reason is that your dog could be howling at the moon. Howling at the moon is an instinct inbred in canines and lupines (wolves). When a dog or wolf howls at the moon, it is usually either an indicator of it being nighttime, or it could be a call to the dog/wolf’s “pack” that the hunt has begun.

So, even though it is extremely annoying to have your dog howling a lot at night, make sure to take this all into consideration before you discipline your dog. Telling a dog to stop howling at night would be like the dog asking you to stop breathing. Both are, essentially, impossible to do.

Read more about this and other dog topics at this site of the veterinarian Racine.