they dont even howl anymore. has anyone else encountered this problem?

It's like that for me too.

Likewise for me also... No wolf howls for me either!

Oh, I thought it was just me.

same here- they make the motions, but no noise.

I also have that problem. Not major but still annoying.

I used to be one of the bethesda defenders....but not anymore. Skyrim is a good game,but the untold slopyness overall is not acceptable.
I feel sorry for the people who have had far worse problems than me. They have got the attention of the mass audience now,it's time to go back to it's roots. Yes,i mean the morrowind days. I would even prefer the odd voice acting and text base ( like morrowind )...rather than full blown voice acting.

well i hope the word of this issue gets to them because to me it is a rather major issue its annoying

I already reported the bug to the Dawnguard Bug List thread. The OP now just needs to see it and add it to the list.

This looks like one of those bugs that are here to stay.I dont think they will fix it.It's geting worse and worse.

Not unless you're on PC, in which case there will more than likely be an unofficial patch for Dawnguard fixing the various new issues if possible, though it is entirely possible that this particular bug may be protected by hardcoding, but that's probably not too likely, but it should be considered as a possibility, anyway. They really need to figure out a way for it to be possible to patch DLC, but it's probably never going to happen.

But considering that there have been some sites giving Dawnguard average or possibly lower critical ratings (with Kotaku being particularly scathing in their review, and Gamespot giving Dawnguard a 7 I think, Game Informer and IGN seemed to like it, though) in part due to the sheer amount of new bugs and how there are so many complaints about all these bugs here on the forums, Bethesda may want to look into a way of fixing the new issues anyway.

I noticed this with my conjured familiar as well. When I started a new character with dawnguard not installed(it breaks the breezehome alchemy upgrade) my familiar did howl when summoned. But after I i re-installed it the wolf no longer howled. How the hell does this add-on cause such a random problem like that. Although after backwards flying dragons and resistance breaks I gueass no one should be surprised.

To some, this may come as a blessing. That Familiar can get old real fast. Plus, it will add to the challenge as they will no longer alert you to their location. Just looking at the glass at half full, in case it doesn't get any attention.

Yesterday i noticed it too.But i probably wouldn't have if i didn't stumble over this thread.I went to the wild to check and yes its true.My wolves stoped howling aswell.Odd

More than likely, when they added the werewolf perk tree through Dawnguard (or anything else that would have directly affected wolves in any way), they accidentally left a dirty edit to the wolf race that overrides the normal sound effects for the wolves with silence when Dawnguard is active. Bethesda's been very sloppy with these things lately for some reason or another, likely because there are so many people working on these features, with some of them not paying enough attention to what they're doing and accidentally editing things that aren't supposed to be edited while editing and adding features that are closely related to said features. It is very easy to end up doing things like this because the engine is finicky like that. Sometimes all it takes to leave a dirty edit is to load up an interior cell like the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary in Falkreath, or try and edit traits of a cell immediately after creating it (which will also "edit" the cell you right-clicked on when you selected the new option, as well as possibly cells that you looked at before editing the one you intended to edit). Duplicating a cell will also always leave a dirty edit as well, since it unreasonably "edits" the original cell.

That said, there are engine issues at play here, which ultimately create problems for modders and developers alike when they go in and add and edit content to the game.