Rottweilers are fierce, loyal dogs with high protective instincts – and quite a bit of a mouth on them! They’re often loud and tend to bark, whine, and make a lot of noise.
But do they also howl? Read on to find out!
Do Rottweilers Howl?
Yes, Rottweilers howl, and it’s a trait that the breed is quite known for. They howl for a variety of reasons such as out of boredom, due to separation anxiety, as a way of communicating, due to pain, or out of excitement.
Reasons A Rottweiler May Howl
1. Separation Anxiety
Some dogs dislike being left alone and experience severe separation anxiety when their owners leave them.
A Rottweiler in this situation is likely to howl excessively as a form of expressing distress when you’re about to leave the house.
They may also pace, act out, or misbehave at around the same time.
The loneliness a Rottweiler feels due to separate anxiety can also mean that they try to howl to call you back to them.
They might hope that this attention-grabbing behavior will persuade you to either stay or take them with you.
2. Boredom
Rottweilers need a decent amount of stimulation and exercise to feel enriched and entertained. Insufficient stimuli can leave them feeling bored, and they might decide to occupy themselves by simply howling.
This might be the case if they also misbehave in order ways, such as by digging up your garden or chewing on furniture.
3. Communication
The ancestors of dogs in the wild would howl as a means of communication. You can see this behavior continue today with other wild canines, such as wolves.
The leftover instinct from that lives on in modern domestic dogs, including Rottweilers!
A Rottweiler may howl to tell other dogs or people where it is or as a response to other perceived forms of communication.
If your Rottweiler hears a dog howl, it might feel the need to respond with its own howl.
Rottweilers might also do this as a warning form of communication. This is a method of informing others that this is their territory, warding off intruders, and making sure other dogs know that this is their turf.
4. Excitement
For some dogs, the line between squeals and howling is pretty thin. When a Rottweiler is excited, they might feel like exclaiming in excitement to express that because they can’t contain all that energy.
This can escalate to a point where the dog is simply howling in total excitement!
You may have seen behavior like this from dogs like huskies or Shiba Inus, too. It’s less common in Rottweilers, but it can still happen!
5. Response To Other Sounds
You already know that Rottweilers respond to other dogs’ howls with their own howls because they recognize it as communication.
Unfortunately for their poor owners, these dogs often can’t necessarily distinguish an animal’s noise from any loud, howl-like sound.
This means that when a Rottweiler hears a siren, alarm, or even a sound from a distant television, it might think something is trying to communicate with it.
That’s why they might respond to these other sounds with a howl.
6. Discomfort or Pain
When a Rottweiler feels pain, it might howl as a way of “crying”, in the same way that a human might cry from severe discomfort.
If the pain is severe, then the usual whimpering or whining that you tend to hear from hurt dogs may escalate to cries or howls.
Similarly, a Rottweiler may communicate their pain to you with that howling. It can be its way of letting you know that something is terribly wrong.
7. It Gets Attention
Like all dogs, Rottweilers learn from their owners what sorts of behaviors get the attention they want.
If you always give your Rottweiler attention when it howls, it may have learned that this is the best way to immediately get you to rush to its side.
This sort of behavior will need to be unlearned with training.
Why Does My Rottweiler Howl At Night?
Your Rottweiler howling at night can be very inconvenient, as it can prevent you from being able to sleep and cause a disturbance that keeps your neighbors up with you.
Some Rottweilers may only howl at night, which makes the behavior all the more confusing.
The fact is that Rottweilers howl at night for the same reason that they howl during the day. If your dog only howls at night, it’s likely because that is the only time that they face the stimuli that trigger the behavior.
For example, a Rottweiler may become lonely at night because you’re in bed, away from them. This causes them to howl, either because of separation or because they know this will get your attention.
Similarly, this is also the time when a Rottweiler might be the most bored or understimulated.
If they didn’t get enough exercise during the day and aren’t sleepy at night, howling may be the a way they can keep themself entertained.
If you live in an area with coyotes or wolves, these canines are often most active at night, which is when they howl and make noise. A Rottweiler may pick up on these noises and howl with them as a result.
This is especially true if you’re in a neighborhood with lots of dogs that like the howl – they feed off each other to communicate back and forth!
Finally, a Rottweiler may howl most at night because it recognizes that this is when its family is most vulnerable. The howling may be an attempt to asset its territory and keep potential intruders and other animals away.
Conclusion
Rottweilers are natural howlers and may do so for many different reasons. If your Rottweiler howls a lot and you’d like to reduce the behavior, determine exactly what is causing it to do this, then address that concern with training, by adding more daily exercise, or with careful reduction of external noise.
You can also speak to your vet to find out more about what you can do to curb the behavior.