Bree does this quirky thing which I call "happy fits". She will be lying on the floor or couch, or even on her own in the bedroom, when her tail starts wagging, then she starts talking and then she starts barking. All the while the tail is wagging and she is awake. There is no provocation, she is lying by herself.

Xena's version is out of the blue while lying on the couch or chair, she starts making snorting noises, shaking her head and grinning while trying to find something to grab hold of like the couch cover.

Lockie so far is "just" happy

Another thing that Bree does is make empathetic howling noises if something sounds distressed. When Lockie used to cry in his crate she would howl softly in return and the other night while the cat was howling (sounded like it was dying) Bere responded by softly howling back. It is almost like lowing? (as in cattle)

Just curious

On the howling thing, when my son was a baby and went to sleep in his room, Issy used to howl along to the baby alarm if he cried. More normally, though, she went up and lay beside his cot until he was asleep. If he started crying, she joined in too and we had the noise of both of them down the baby alarm!

Mac quite regularly lays on his back in the field and rolls about like he's just heard something really funny, and then he'll just boing to his feet and run round like a mad thing, completely on his own. "Mad half hours" we call 'em.

As for howling, Toby the spaniel has always been a howling boy, ever since we got him at 5 months and he was taken from his mother and the remainder of his siblings. And of course as soon as Toby starts , Mac just has to join in. It's quite something, and if you heard it on a dark misty night, it would be VERY scary ! ala hound of the Baskeville's

Mines been howling during the night this week, my son had to come down to him, we thought it was probably because we were away, but more likely because there is a bitch in season somewhere!

He does have mad half hours too, where he is lying on the floor, tail banging against the floor and he stars talking to us, its beautiful, but annoying as he gets louder and louder and 'speaks' over the TV when there is somehing good on!

In our last house where we had kennels of Lurchers and Greyhounds and a Patterdae Terrier, one would start, then they would all start howling, quite eerie!