Dave Bonta's poem is a small, quiet scene: someone listens to coyotes howling somewhere off to the west, in the cold, and notices how their dog reacts. The coyotes "like to sit and wail," a casual phrase that makes their crying sound almost like a habit or a pastime rather than a sign of real distress.
The second stanza pushes this further. Their wail is "like no grief / in any sea." It is an odd comparison, and it seems to say that the sound is its own thing, wilder and stranger than any human sorrow we might reach for to describe it. The speaker doesn't try to explain it away.
Then the poem turns to "the wonderful ears / of our little dog." The word "wonderful" is warm and a little funny. The speaker seems more charmed by the dog's alert, listening ears than troubled by the howling. The mood is hushed and affectionate: wild cold outside, a small familiar creature close by, and a speaker happy to simply pay attention.