Music For Pets To Help Them Calm Down
Your pets are similar to you in many ways. They enjoy your company, especially if you’re running in the park, tossing a frisbee, making funny noises, or rolling around on the floor. They love to snack between meals, and they enjoy sleeping in your bed.
Pets also get stressed and agitated, just like you do. And in the same way that you enjoy sweet, mellow music when you need to relax, classical music for pets is one of the best ways to calm them down.
Dogs, in particular, enjoy classical music. What about cats? Well…not so much.
Dogs enjoy classical music
Many animal behavior specialists have researched the pet/music connection. They’ve all come to the same conclusion, dogs like classical music. It’s particularly effective for relaxing shelter dogs, especially those with behavioral problems.
The PetMD article, The Science Behind Calming Dogs With Sound, discusses research conducted by Dr. Lori Kogan from the Colorado State College of Veterinary Medicine. Kogan studied 117 shelter dogs trying to determine how and why music affects them.
She played classical music, and it calmed them down. She also played metal, which agitated the same dogs. Although some humans find easy-listening music a bit annoying, she discovered that easy-listening music calms dogs too.
Another study, Effects of Olfactory and Auditory Enrichment on the Behaviour of Shelter Dogs, reached the same conclusions about shelter dogs and music. They also discussed another study that determined how dogs enjoyed other music genres. They relaxed while listening to soft rock, Motown, and pop. Also, they didn’t care for reggae at all.
Why do pets like music?
Scientists don’t understand everything about music for pets and how it works to calm them. However, Dr. Kogan found that classical music (and easy listening music) affected multiple areas of a dog’s brain. It didn’t just calm them; it also caused a reduction in cortisol, the human/dog stress hormone.
Cats have their own musical style
A group of University of Wisconsin psychologists determined that cats do, in fact, like their own type of music. Moreover, they found that neither classical tunes nor any other kind of human music affected them one way or another.
They theorized that cats and other animals would respond to music that more closely resembled frequency ranges and tempos found in their own animal communications. They eventually worked with a musician who created several original “cat” songs.
The cats had varying responses to their music. If you check out the Youtube video, Scientists Create Music for Cats! you can see for yourself how two cats react.
What about other animals?
Dogs and humans aren’t the only creatures to relax when they hear classical music. Another group of researchers concluded that classical music had a similarly relaxing effect on chickens, Asian elephants, and Western lowland gorillas.
Call Hebron Veterinary Hospital
Contact us at (860) 228-4324 to discuss your pet’s health concerns (or musical tastes) or visit our contact page to schedule a preventative care visit.