mwah mwah mwah mwah woo woo woo woo

February 9, 2012 6:20 PM

Yes, this will make your cheeks hurt! (SLYTHABV) [single link youtube husky and baby video]
posted by HuronBob (37 comments total)

Interesting, I wonder how it relates to that "silence means danger" verbal grooming thing that social animals do. I know it's a big part in training birds not to be loud (ANY VOCALIZATION MEANS WE'RE SAFE!) and rewarding them for not vocalizing. The other Husky/baby videos (there are many) usually show the baby crying and the Husky howling along to calm it, this seems more like play - for one thing the Husky is focused on the person holding the camera, it almost look like it's asking "Am I doing good? Like this is what I should do? This is playing?"
posted by The Whelk at 6:28 PM on February 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

Between this and the wolf/bear video from earlier today, it's like a cutevalanche.
posted by deadmessenger at 6:32 PM on February 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

Cute, but I'd hate to be their neighbour.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 6:33 PM on February 9, 2012

Bonus points for the post title.
posted by Trurl at 6:37 PM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The dog's like, "hey baby, I've known these guys longer. I think I can translate for you."
posted by sweetkid at 6:39 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Then again birds are prey animals and dogs are not, so combined with the dogs adorable " uh am I doing this right?" pose, I think it's play that the baby came up with and the dog is going along with.
posted by The Whelk at 6:40 PM on February 9, 2012

The baby is saying, "Sing with me,doggie! Sing with me!". And the dog is saying, "Help! This kid won't shut up! Heeeelp!"
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 6:40 PM on February 9, 2012

I'm as intrigued with the tail wagging as with the dog's singing -- body language is super important with dogs. The "is this okay? am I doing okay? what the heck is all this noise about?" communication mentioned above seems to coincide with the tail's message.
posted by Celsius1414 at 6:46 PM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

There's something badly wrong with me because this made me think of John Carpenter's THE THING for some reason...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:48 PM on February 9, 2012 [8 favorites]

I was thinking about The Omen.
posted by vidur at 6:49 PM on February 9, 2012

That dog has a serious case of Psycho Eyes.
posted by DU at 6:51 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Surprisingly, they're still friends six years later. Also, there's a video of the baby French-kissing a "Watusi calf."
posted by Nomyte at 6:52 PM on February 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

That was the most sarcastic dog I've ever seen. "Oh, you know what you sound like? You sound like this: WA WA WA WA WA WA. Go on, make more stupid noises. Hey, humans, check out how dumb this baby is."
posted by phooky at 6:59 PM on February 9, 2012 [18 favorites]

You want a psycho-eye husky... here it is...
posted by HuronBob at 7:11 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

BABY: DOG

DOG

DOG

DOG: What, Baby?

BABY: HI DOG I AM TALKING I LIKE TALKING DO YOU LIKE TO TALK?

DOG: Perhaps you are hungry, Baby? Is that why you are making noise? I will repeat your noise to the Alpha.

BABY: I LIKE THE WAY YOU TALK I LIKE THIS TALKING DOG.

DOG: Why are you staring at me, Baby? You should try staring at the Alpha, like I am. It gets her attention.

BABY: TALK TALK. NOW I AM TALKING LIKE YOU DOG. DOG. DOG. LOOK AT ME.

DOG: Alpha, your pup seems to be hungry. Or maybe it would like a squeaky toy. I am not clear on what it wants, actually. Alpha. Alpha?

BABY: DOG.

DOG: Are you seriously recording this? You're not going to put this video on that website with the cats, are you?

BABY: DOG

DOG

DOG

TALK TO ME DOG
posted by BlueJae at 7:13 PM on February 9, 2012 [40 favorites]

I think the whelk has it right. I love how they (mostly) stop at the same time and then start up again at the same time. I do think that the baby just digs the dog's rhythm so he' playing him out, and the dog is more like, "WTF"?
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 7:34 PM on February 9, 2012

My husky is conversational like this. (wife won't let me link to videos with her singing/talking with the dog, some lame thing about her professional reputation...WHATever..). She (the dog) will engage in conversation with anyone that gets into her face and woos/growls/barks, and sort of repeats it back to you. It usually moves into puppy-bows and play moves... Lots of fun...Huskies are GREAT dogs!
posted by HuronBob at 7:38 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

You misspelled ears.
posted by anateus at 7:56 PM on February 9, 2012

I am apparently awful, because this exchange looked a lot to me like:

BABY: noise noise noise I make noise noise noise
DOG: SHUT UP SHUT UP
BABY: ...
DOG: ...
BABY: NOISE NOISE NOIS-
DOG: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
BABY: ...
DOG: ...
BABY: NOISENOISENOISENOISENOISE!
DOG: OH MY GOD SHUT UP!
BABY: ...
DOG: (owner, you're not expecting me to... handle this... are you?)
posted by Navelgazer at 8:13 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yep, you're right, you're awful! ;-) (if only for using the term "owner")
posted by HuronBob at 8:17 PM on February 9, 2012

This is exactly what happens when I take occasion to talk to my H.R. advisor. She howls a great tune and in perfect time, but in the end I'm pretty sure she'd just as soon eat me for breakfast. She's got an impressive collection of skulls, some of them from babies, some from managers with guilding on their crania. I guess it is what makes a person proficient at human relations.
Homo homini lupus est.
posted by isopraxis at 8:23 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I hate babies.
posted by timsneezed at 8:28 PM on February 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

Baby: make noise! I make noise and then you make noise!
Dog: okay tiny human
Baby: more noise!
Dog: I don't think, Alpha are you okay with this? Cause like this thing is screaming and
Baby: More Noise!
Dog: Okay! Noise you people seem to like it, this is good right?
Baby:Noise!
Dog: I seriously do not
Baby: Noise!
Dog: Aroo roo roo wah!
Baby: Noise!
Dog: I well, if you like it, Aroooo whoooooooo
posted by The Whelk at 8:36 PM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hate babies.

Here you go.
posted by curious nu at 8:39 PM on February 9, 2012

The most adorable thing is the dog going back to the person holding the camera like " we're okay with this? Like this isn't a distress call or anything? This is cool?"
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 PM on February 9, 2012

An innovative rendition of Dueling Banjos.
posted by wam at 8:41 PM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Like, compared to this where the dog is focused on the baby and then the baby shuts up, seems more oh shush now, vocal pact bonding. The large breeds have very interesting behaviors toward infants and toddlers, some herding dogs will keep people away from them and become very protective. I know of at least one family where the dog suddenly became All About The Baby and decided its job was to Watch Baby.
posted by The Whelk at 8:48 PM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

So, yay domestication!
posted by The Whelk at 8:48 PM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Whelk... That's a great clip, I've seen that before. Here at Husky Central, there's a belief that the bond between humans and canines is strongest with the more primitive (meaning, closer to Wolf) breeds, that, somehow, the bond/pack sense is stronger with breeds such as Huskies, Wolves, Malamutes, German Shepards, etc.
posted by HuronBob at 8:55 PM on February 9, 2012

Well, Dogs Like Jobs, so having a brand new human be Your Job seems like it would be automatic.
posted by The Whelk at 8:58 PM on February 9, 2012

"Well, Dogs Like Jobs..."

Yeah, mine uses a MacAir...

wait...never mind...
posted by HuronBob at 9:04 PM on February 9, 2012

This made me a little bit sad. One of these days, the kid is going to figure out how to get its mouth to make words. But the dog never will.

Our dog, rest her soul, was a talker. Only when she felt both comfortable and needy (which was most of the time). Knowing that barking was not, strictly speaking, smiled upon, she would go to great lengths to vocalize. "Urrrrr? UrrRRRrr?" Neck craned, snout aquiver, button-eyes plaintive. "Awooerrr? ErAWeurrRRR? [snort!] uRRf?"

My mom would look down at her and scratch her head sympathetically, which probably wasn't what the dog was after.

"I know," mom would say. "I know! You're trying so hard, but you don't have lips!"

"Awooerr?"

"No lips!"
posted by bicyclefish at 9:55 PM on February 9, 2012 [7 favorites]

The wolf dog clip from The Whelk is awesome. It makes me wonder if the baby had colic, only because my nephew had it and specific types of loud sounds were all that would calm him (in my nephew's case, Old '97s music at full volume.)

I grew up with smart dogs. Shelties. Pogo, who I really grew up with, was crazy about his herding instinct, and would go manic about the ceiling fan, but would also dive into the pool and swim around "herding" my friends and me. Amber, the next dog, was (is, really) perhaps smarter. I remember visiting my folks in Colorado, and hearing her scratching at a box my mom had placed in front of my door in the morning while she was rearranging the basement, and then listening to Amber run upstairs, get my dad to open the upstairs door to the deck, then running down those stairs to find my ground-floor window and start scratching at it for me to wake up and play with her.

That seemed like a pretty smart dog. But in a weird way, I've seen this kind of sympathy more with cats. Cats, who seem most of the time more like freeloading roommates than pets or companions, but who in my experience will notice someone upset and come over to comfort them. I wonder if I'm crazy about that, though.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:10 PM on February 9, 2012

Navelgazer: When you're in tune with a cat, the cat will take care of you. In an earthquake, my cat demanded I come out with her, once she persuaded me to open the door for her (it was an aftershock of the Wittier quake, ~1987). She also once attacked another cat whom she thought was attacking me (I had accidently stepped on the other cat's tail, and was hissed at. My cat instantly kicked that cat's ass for daring to hiss at me). But she also attacked me once when I accidentally tripped over one of her kittens.

As for dogs, I lived with some breed of sled dog once. Dog was a complete sweetheart with her humans, and would maim and kill any dog from outside. Folks in the neighborhood learned to abide leash laws, because this beast had zero tolerance for friendly social calls. Out walking, she was the definition of "intense". She was hunting, far as she was concerned. She was a stray that wandered into town one winter. No one claimed her, and we advertised her presence. (This was in Ironwood, MI. A very suitable place to find a stray sled dog).
posted by Goofyy at 2:03 AM on February 10, 2012

This is a group howl for the pack. I know, I hear it all the time... the last time I heard it was probably 6:07 this morning. My daughter (she's 7 months) will do this with Nanuk - repeatedly. He'll also howl to get her to stop crying (which sadly does not work as well with her).

Huskies will howl to comfort, they will howl to alert, and then they'll howl to be part of the pack. All one needs to do is be the source of a sustained or long repetative sequence of notes and one's husky will lose the ability to be remotely quiet. Hell, he'll stop eating to howl. He'll give up treats to howl. And once he has started, it gets harder and harder to get him to stop, he has to get quiet enough to hear that he isn't missing your sound.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:52 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Is the baby signing "more", as in "dog make more noises!"?
posted by orme at 5:19 AM on February 10, 2012

:)
posted by Xoebe at 8:56 AM on February 10, 2012