Puppies are the most interactive toy in the world. Anyone who has ever had a dog for their children or as a companion for an older adult knows their compassion and affection are equalled by their asset as a constant form of activity.
Many of you are familiar with common games and activities you can play with your puppy. Fetch, simple commands such as sit, down, roll over, play dead etc are fun ways to interact with puppies.
Play dead is exemplified by this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6orB8j4QhM
I am not talented enough to teach a puppy that trick, but I have tried to teach some of them to play fetch.
When you have 7 - 20 foster puppies it isn't as easy to play fetch. You can imagine the chaos that ensues when you try to throw one ball and issue the command fetch. 15 dogs run in one general direction, possibly in the same direction as the ball was thrown, but not necessarily. The other 5 hesitate, but then turn, intrigued at the activity of the others. They set off at a gallop that takes them in the same trajectory as the rest. If one or two of the puppies accidentally finds the ball there is great jubilation for .5 seconds until such a time as the others realize they do NOT have the ball, then some sort of growling activity begins, allowing the possesor of the ball to look at me, possibly thinking about coming back to me. I stand expectantly, calling them to come with the ball, but, alas, the only thing that does happen over and over again is that they run farther away chasing the one puppy that has the ball at this moment. Then the next and the next. This can sustain their interest for almost 30 seconds. Great fun.
A game that is less familiar to the single dog owner is WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE? This is a game you can play if there is another person in the room who is not as familiar with the puppies as you are. You need at least 10 dogs to play this game. Most of them will probably be black (least adopted and most left over) All but two of the dogs I have right now are black. Anyway, a good time to play this game is about 3:14 AM. Have puppies securely sleeping in the living room, but leave the side door open so they can get out to "do their business". It helps if the hound dog begins this round, because he will be the loudest and therefore you can be sure to be awake to play this game.
The first round was easy, because once the hound started, the others quickly followed. Approximately half the dogs were right outside my bedroom window, but the rest were still in the living room, giving the game a stereo quality. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE? the sleepiest person asks. I immediately knew it was a fire truck. 15 seconds later the sound of the siren was audible to our ears. It actually came up our street, but the firemen were nice enough to shut off the siren once they got onto the residential street. I could have gotten more points for that round if I could have accurately guessed how many black dogs were outside the window in the dark, but no one wanted to go out and count. I guess we could have counted how many were in the living room and subtracted from the total, but I was too sleepy to think of it at that moment.
Fun Facts from an anonymous person on a question board.
Fact: Howling is communication!
Fact: Howling travels on airwaves very similar to those sirens travel.
From personal studies (In the domestic canine field) I encountered that two-thirds of the dogs which are always are howling when they hear an ambulance, police car or fire engine, are outdoor held dogs!
Most interesting was to realize that almost 80 percent of such dogs were:
A) Male
B) Not altered (Neutered)
C) Single dogs (And again, exclusively living a lonely life in someone's backyard/property).
Usually I read it's because of loneliness but when another factor popped up, as such dogs are usually rather anti-social with other dogs/severely dog aggressive, which led me to believe it might be territorial.
Researching wild canines, I came across the fact that wolves will react to the howl of a wolf from another, close by pack, and not, as usually believed, to communicate throughout the internal pack.
Fact is that the internal pack exercises short barks and very short sounding howls to assure the pack wasn't spread too widely, and to assure the safety of all members.
The long lasting, intense howls between packs helps define territorial boundaries as well as the size of them.
The longer, stronger, intense and far traveling the howl carries, as more territory can be claimed. It also hints to another pack in the area how large the pack may be. To intensify the effects, the howling wolf often seeks elevated areas like a hill, or even lower branches of trees.
Given those facts, then comparing it with the howling outdoor held dog, it makes a lot of sense.
The sirens, traveling on the same exact airwaves and frequencies, trigger the dog to howl to establish the territory they are in, ergo the property they live in, in efforts to keep intruders out.
Again, dogs howl even when someone plays the piano or howls at their dog but it's the "internal" communication while stimuli from out-of-pack-and-territory triggers territorial, boundary indicating communication.
NOW BACK TO MY STORY
Already being awake, we decided to have a light midmorning breakfast and coffee. Wait, that is premorning, so mid post midnight. So we were sitting in my room under the windows when we had a chance to play the game again around 5:23 AM. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE? This one was between two dogs, there was a tinkling metalic sounds followed by an agressive growling, yipping, and a submissive hurt whimpering whine.
I won again. "That is Bear playing with a small can that he got out of the neighbors trash pile (and I really do mean trash pile, not garbage cans). One of the foster puppies tried to play with the can and he is attacking the other dog (in a non vicious way)." Ty stood up and looked out the window. I lost points because I didn't know that Bear was standing on the other puppy, but got plus points for identifying the standee--it was the hound dog again.
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