Researchers at Budapest’s Eotvos Lorand University, where Lehoczki works, decided to examine whether certain dog breeds are more prone to howling and if this had anything to do with their genetic closeness to wolves.

Lehoczki and her team explored how a dog’s breed, age and sex impacted its reaction to howling by testing 68 purebred family dogs, playing three-minute recordings of wolf howls and observing their reactions.

The dogs in the experiment belonged to 28 different breeds ranging from Shiba inu, Siberian husky, Alaskan malamute and Pekingese, to bull terriers and boxers.

“The main finding was that those breeds that are genetically closer to wolves are more prone to respond with howling, and they also show more stress signals than dogs that are less related to wolves,” Lehoczki said.

She added that this was true only for dogs older than five years. Among younger dogs there was no difference between the breeds, so researchers will examine this aspect further.

Older dogs of more ancient breeds responded with longer howls and showed more stress-related behaviours, too, while more modern breeds seemed to react with barking.

The research determined that breeds with a greater tendency to howl also show more stress-related behaviour such as yawning, shaking their body, licking their mouth, or scratching the body.

The study is the first specifically investigating howling in domestic dogs. “Domestication and selective breeding by humans fundamentally changed dogs’ vocal repertoire, and both the perception and production of howling in dogs,” it concluded.