Interlude: Howling boys
home with a cold yesterday, i was sleeping away the afternoon when a siren went by and woke me up.
the boys promptly howled.
toby used to howl whenever he was lonely; he started howling when we were living at the thurber house, and he howled every time i left him in the apartment, even if i was just running down to the main floor to get my newspaper. he'd never howled before we moved to columbus, as far as i know, but he howled constantly there. i blame the ghost.
in later years, he taught boscoe to howl. i don't think border collies usually howl; they're too busy stalking sheep and giving them the evil eye. but toby and boscoe started howling every afternoon around 5:30, apparently in anticipation of our coming home. our next door neighbors told us they heard them like clockwork. fortunately, they found it amusing. (they snapped the picture of toby and boscoe howling in the back yard that you see above.)
so bosoe has passed the talent on to riley. they howl at sirens. it's a bonding things, i guess.
yesterday, as the siren's wail died away, riley started the howl from wherever he was downstairs. he has a yippy, frantic, staccato howl that suits his frantic personality. boscoe, who was lying on my feet on the bed, heard him, lifted his nose to the sky (actually, ceiling) and arooooooooooed his clear, mournful howl--a smooth countertenor to riley's yippy soprano.
they stopped. riley started again, and boscoe joined him. it was beautiful music, harmonic and wild. i'm not sure how long they'd have kept it up--the siren was long since gone by then--but i finally said, "that's enough, boys," and boscoe's head snapped around as though he was quite surprised i was there. maybe he thought he was deep in some primal forest, howling for his pack.
riley raced up the stairs, leaped onto the bed, we all had a good cuddle, and then i went back to sleep.
3 comments:
Kodiak and Caper weren't howlers, except if we howled, then, after a few minutes of looking puzzled, they would join in. I haven't managed to get Toby to howl yet.
Peter and I went to Brookfield Zoo shortly after they opened their Mexican wolf exhibition - a beautifully landscaped and carefully constructed modern zoo space that was meant to facilitate wolf breeding. We got there just as the sun was going down and one fella was up on the big rock. He started to howl and then we could hear other howls, and eventually the whole pack was assembled and howling. It was awesome.
we can get riley and boscoe to howl, too, if we start 'em. it's funny. keep trying with toby; he's such a wolf-like dog, i'm sure he'll do it.
i've seen a wolf in the wild once--maybe twice. i've heard them howl in the wild, but from a very far distance.
never actually seen wolves howl. how cool that must have been!
One of my college roommates had a beagle/basset mix. Sometimes we would all sit around and start to howl, just to set the poor thing off. But once he got going, there was no stopping him.
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