Music for Pets — How Soundwaves Can Soothe Your Furry Friends’ Souls
The different tunes cats and dogs love to hear
As pet owners, we want to ensure that they’re happy and healthy.
And we can give our pets the gift of music.
Just like humans, animals can benefit from the positive effects of music on the brain, such as the release of feel-good chemicals that help to alleviate stress and anxiety.
But how exactly do we take advantage of music to help our furry companions?
The simplest way we can help them
Before we dive into specific genres or pitches, let’s understand that music is essentially a physical vibration.
As a sound wave, music can cover up stressful outside noises like thunderstorms and fireworks.
So if they’re afraid of thunderstorms or fireworks, playing calming music or white noise can help to drown out these sounds and reduce our pet’s anxiety.
It’s important to choose music with a frequency range that can effectively block out the unwanted noise. This is because sound waves of different frequencies can interfere with each other and either amplify or cancel each other out.
For instance, classical music can mask some of the lower-frequency components of thunderstorms. While it may not completely cancel it out, this type of music can help to reduce the overall perceived loudness of the thunderstorm by interfering with the lower-frequency sound waves.
Similarly, white noise can also be effective at masking low-frequency sounds such as thunderstorms. By providing a constant, non-disruptive background noise, it can help to create a calming and soothing environment for our pets.
Basically, we use music to make other noises less noticeable and stressful for our pets.
Use of music at home
Let’s look at what music can be used specifically for cats and dogs.
Dogs
Although dogs like music, as seen in many experiments, you can’t just put on your favorite album and expect them to enjoy it as much as you do.
They also have their own preferences.
Sadly, most research has focused on sheltered dogs which we all know is not the ideal environment for a dog. There’s much more stress than in a stable home and soothing effects might be more welcomed than increasing their arousal (e.g. in case they’re lazy to activate them a little).
A study in 2017 showed that classical music, soft rock, and reggae decreased anxiety and stress in kennel-housed dogs. They would see that their heart rate decreased, spent less time barking and standing and more sitting or laying down. However, heavy metal music caused them more stress, like body shaking.
In other studies, classical music consistently shows to be the most beneficial genre for dogs, so many animal shelters only allow this type of music to be heard.
These are some of the music pieces used in these experiments:
- 6.5 hours of slow tempo and low pitch tracks from a CD 300 Classical Favourites.
- J.S. Bach: Air on G String
- J. Strauss: The Blue Danube Waltz
- L.Beethoven: Fur Elise
One interesting outcome from several experiments is that dogs get accustomed to the classical music after 7 days, having no longer a positive effect on them. So it’s a good idea to change the music every once in a while.
Cats
Unlike the research regarding music for dogs, scientists have poured into creating cat music, one that is in their frequency range and that uses tempos that fit their natural communication process.
This is what is called species-appropriate music.
Back in 2015, two researchers created cat music with the following features:
- The higher average pitch of cat songs (1.34kHz) compared to human music (335Hz). A two-octave higher difference.
- Sliding frequencies in approximately 50% of the melody. This is a change in the pitch or tone of their meow that rises or falls gradually over time and is part of a cat’s vocalization process.
- Consonant harmonies and pure tones.
What happened when they played these songs to cats at home?
The researchers observed the response of 23 cats to two different types of music — one that was specifically composed for cats and another that were composed for humans.
They found that the cats responded significantly more positively to the music that was composed for cats. The cats also responded more quickly to the cat music compared to the human music. The age of the cats had an influence on their response to the music, with younger cats responding more positively to the cat music.
Cats approached the speakers more often when cat music was playing. Also, they tended to orient their body towards the speaker more often when cat music was on.
Here are the songs used in the experiment. Try them on your cat and see what happens:
As you’ll see cats respond positively to music that incorporates sounds like purring and suckling so keep that in mind next time you play a track for them.
Soothing music while you’re away
As a pet owners you want them to feel okay while you’re away.
We know that leaving our pets alone for long periods can be stressful, but music can help to soothe them while we are away.
Creating a playlist of calming music or sounds, such as nature sounds or white noise, can help to create a relaxing environment.
You can also use apps that offer specially curated playlists for pets, such as the Relax My Dog app, which features music specifically designed for dogs to help them relax and sleep.
Recommendations
When creating playlists for pets, it’s important to consider the type of animal you have, what sounds they respond to, and what kind of effect you want the music to have.
For example, if you want to make a lazy pet more active, you might choose music with faster tempos and patterns based on sounds they associate with being alert and active.
On the other hand, if you want to calm down an anxious pet, you might choose music with melodic lines based on sounds they associate with comfort and reward.
It’s also important to pay attention to the pitch, duration, and tone of the music you choose, as different species may respond better to certain features.
Overall, using music can be a great way to enrich your pet’s environment and help them feel more comfortable and content.
Final Thoughts
Music doesn’t discriminate among species.
It benefits us all.
But our premise is that the same features we use to induce and communicate emotions in human music apply to other species.
But every species evolved with its own biology and communication system so we can’t expect that the same music will get the same results.
So if we can make music adapted to our pet’s needs, instead of just mindlessly applying our music, we can help them more effectively while we are with them or while we’re out of the house.
One thing to consider. If research has shown that the stress cats experience when they come into a new environment can take up to 5 weeks to overcome, species-appropriate music could help reduce the time it takes to adapt to this new environment.
It would be nice to have the same personalized music for dogs, but we’ll have to wait for that.
So have you played music for your pets already? What were the results? Did you see them react positively? Let me know in the comments!
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