New Voice?

Sometimes those old sayings just don't hold water. Proof is always in the pudding and that sort of thing. Every morning and sometimes at night, or the middle of the day, depending on how the planets are aligned and the moon phase we have had night or day songs. Beautiful melodies, dog voices raised from the depths of their ancestral memories.

New dog arrives, the melody changes, another dog leaves music changes again. What has always amazed me is that there is always a dog tune leader outside or inside that leads off and then others join in. Noses pointed skyward, eyes closed, lips circled.

Sounds vary from high pitched, to low baritones, slow and melodious or a quick tempo. Dogs do not sound the same and each has their style. Once the song leader calls out the choir they all join in for 10 seconds or so and then some maestro mentally signals stop and all howling ceases in an instant. There are no lingering voices. They all stop at once.

Our morning song leader has always been Spencer, at least for the last 8 years. Spencer is a Border Collie/Rott, sporting a white tuxedo shirt and has always yipped others into a song frenzy. He's never howled. Not horribly unusual. Many newcomers don't know how to howl, but with observation and desire they all quickly learn. Spencer has always yipped. Didn't really matter, the others all knew it was the intention and spirit of the yip that mattered and not the tune.

This morning a new voice emerged. Following a few warm up yips, Spencer howled!

What does it mean? Mere humans are pathetically lacking insight to know these matters. One thing is certain, it's an unusual change after almost 9 years, we'll be watching things closely for subtle changes everywhere.