In this short, a family dog disappears into the woods...and the mystery of what happened to him raises a big question about what it means to be wild.

In our New Normal episode, we talked to evolutionary biologist Brian Hare about what happens to animals when they get domesticated. In this podcast, we turn that question around and wonder about the remnants of wildness in our household pets.

When Lulu Miller first heard the call of coyotes as a teenager at her family’s cabin in Cape Cod, she loved the sound—it was a thrilling taste of a world that hadn’t been tamed. But one night, she and her family came back to the cabin to find that their much loved, and very domesticated, terrier Charlie was missing. When they called him, they heard a loud yelp from the forest, followed by a chorus of howls ... and never saw Charlie again.

Lulu and our producer Soren Wheeler talk to Brian Hare about what he thinks might've happened to Charlie and ask him whether a domestic animal can ever really return to the wild. To explain, he tells them the strange tale of the New Guinea Singing Dogs.