A little departure from the norm today to give the animals center stage.
This is all a part of preparing myself for the cooler weather. As usual, the ritual involves me considering things I actually like about the colder months. One of the big ones is Halloween, and general spookiness. Howling wolves fit in perfectly – full moons, dark woods, ominous music and all that. Love it.
But wolves are really just big old softies, it turns out. A study published in Current Biology found that wolves appear to howl more when a beloved member of their pack goes away for some reason. The wolves are also brown nosers, as the howls did increase when the absent member was high ranking. Howling in this manner did not seem to require a spike in stress hormones.
For more details, and some cool wolf howling sounds, go here.
On a personal note… While I am traditionally a “cat person,” I do appreciate a fine dog. My sister has a wonderful basset named Frank, and he is an excellent character. Still, were I to ever get a dog, it would have to be a serious canine. Something that nearly matched me in weight, and retained the look of a true wolf.
This concludes your animal lesson for the day.