While not discounting the significance of the dogs making a lot of noise in this case, it should be pointed out that we have a lot of wild dogs out here in Brookfield, and they can often be heard howling at night, which in turn sets off a lot of the domestic dogs.
We also have foxes, and for anyone that has heard a fox (particularly the female) howling and barking, it can be a real spine-chilling sound. They do that to call their young back from the hunting, I gather.
We had a pack of feral dogs causing havoc out here a few years ago, with pet sheep, goats, and domestic dogs being savaged and killed one night in particular. The council got a dog catcher/hunter to camp out every night for about 6 weeks - and all he did was shoot someone's pet dog from Boscombe Road...! The feral dogs are still out there - we can hear them many a night.
Just saying - it could have been the wild dogs that set off the pet dogs howling. Our two join in sometimes, from the verandah - a very eery sound.