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'Law And Order' Theme Song Sends Fido into a Frenzy, Says YouTube

by Caleb Johnson on February 24, 2010 at 03:40 PM

A great mystery recently surfaced on YouTube, and like any great mystery, it involves murder (as imagined by a TV show anyway), intrigue, and dogs. Yes, dogs. Earlier this week, the folks at Boing Boing found a funny video of a dog howling every time its owner played the 'Law and Order' theme song (you know, "BUM BUM..."). A quick search revealed the howling pup wasn't an isolated phenomenon. Apparently, there's a lot of videos on YouTube of dogs howling at 'Law and Order' (one of which is after the break).

But, after finding out about all this, no answers were offered. That's where MSNBC's Rachel Maddow comes into the picture. She decided to do a little detective work on a recent episode of her show. The host interviewed a canine behavioral expert named Robert Brandau, who said that some sound in the music elicits a "fixed-action response" from dogs. Basically, the dog's brain is hardwired to perform certain actions when it hears certain sounds. In this case, the response is howling.


Okay, so maybe it wasn't that big of a mystery after all. But it's interesting to note that Brandau said howling doesn't mean the dogs are in pain, or that they dislike 'Law and Order.' In fact, he said they're quite enjoying themselves and are even howling along with the music, sort of.

The show certainly gets a better response from dogs than it gets from us. When we hear those ominous opening chords, our instinctual response is to change the channel. [From: Boing Boing and MSNBC]

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Tags: BoingBoing, dogs, funny, law and order, rachel maddow, RachelMaddow, television, top, trends, weird, youtube

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