you know what this is a BIG BIG Problem when growl (its said to be one of the useless moves) and GROWLithe cant GROWL
The people who design Pokemon games read in Japanese. In Japanese, Growlithe's name is ガーディ (pronounced like "gadi"), and growl's name is なきごえ (pronounced like "nakigoe"), so the game designers saw no reason for Growlithe to learn growl. source source