Baby’s first howl
Teaching a baby wolf to speak:
Back when Stella had her small dog posse at Dolores Park, we’d go over there and spend hours just hanging. The little dogs would sniff and snurfle together, while the people chatted and laughed at the dogs. One Friday evening, I had to go meet someone, so a friend agreed to keep an eye on Stella and deliver her back to my place when it got dark.
Stella didn’t notice me slip away until about thirty minutes after I’d gone. But once she realized I wasn’t there, she started running around, increasingly frantic as she searched for me. Finally, she sat back on her haunches, lifted her head straight up, and let out a series of mournful howls. It’s her most primal expression of not-rightness; and she usually only does it in the moment she realizes I’m gone.
I don’t think most chihuahuas howl, but Stella grew up surrounded by terriers, so she has a little satan in her. She fights like a ruffian, and has taught Archie to play terrier-style, which is fiercer and bitier than most of your pocket pups. And if she’s at Betsy’s house with Gus and Bruno, she’ll sing in any chorus of howls, because that’s what you do when you’re part of the pack.