why does this song make my dog whine and whimper?

[DTDkettleCORNfan]

Our Golden Retriever puppy just turned 1. He is our first pet, so I am new to the world of dogs. He is very sweet and low key (for a young dog), but whenever we play the Laurie Berkner song "Walk Along the River" he starts to really whine and whimper. The song is not crazy....its a mellow childrens' song. He has not done this with other music or TV. It only happens at the part of the song where Laurie and a chorus of kids sing "ooo-ah, ooo-ah" repeatedly. Even if I sing the "ooo-ah" part of the song by myself without the CD, he reacts the same way (whining and jumping up on me).

Any ideas what is going on? Is it common for dogs to react like this to certain songs? I tried to do a google search for songs that make dogs whine, but didn't have much luck. And since I have learned MANY wonderful things here in the Disneyland section of Disboards, I thought I would post my question here.

I have told my 5 year old that we'll skip that song when it comes on, but if I'm out of the room and she forgets....hmmmmmm.

 

[chell]

Interesting. I want to see what others have to say. When I get picture mail on my cell the ding drives my dog nuts! It makes her very clingy. It's just a small ding but she can't stand it and starts clinging to me. She has to jump on me and needs to be comforted. I was able to change it from the text notification but I haven't figured out how to change it from the picture mail. I don't want to torture my poor baby. She's about 60 lbs. so it isn't like a little doggie jumping on me. But she's my baby so I let her do it.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I'm not familiar with that song. But from what you've said, my guess would be that the oohs and aahs elicit your dog's natural response to howl, which, from an evolution standpoint (in the wolf pack) reunited canines with their packs. If you want, you can try howling with him or singing that song to him and see if he howls. We do it with our dog, but we've also had dogs that have howled on their own to sirens, etc.

 

[WDWBarb]

I have a little mutt (who I adore) who goes nuts and starts howling anytime he hears the song "Werewolves of London." Grated, there IS howling in the song, but this dog never makes noise and if we pretend howl, we can't get the same response. Must be the specific tone of the howling in the song.

It's actually adorable and he seems to like it. He wags his tail and jumps around the room, howling as loud as he can. My big dog almost visibly rolls her eyes at him.

 

[erincon23]

My husband's dog (when he was growing up) used to "sing along" to opera on the radio or records... not to anything else, just opera. Maybe your dog just really, really likes that song. Do you get the feeling that the song bothers him, or is he just active? There could be a tone in it from something that you can't hear that bothers him if he seems to actually have a problem. Our dog recently started to bark at 3 am -- she wasn't having any problem, she was just ready to go (she's 12 years old). My husband bought a little machine at Petsmart that is supposed to make a sound only the dog can hear when she barks (it doesn't work quite right, we actually have to push a button to have it make the sound), and she hates that tone and shuts right up (You can use it to correct bad behavior also). She's much less barky now, which is wonderful, but maybe the song has a tone in that doggy range that bothers her.

Erin