In many ways, for me the best time of day is when I take the dogs out first thing in the morning. Particularly at this time of year, I love that everything is so fresh and clean.
And quiet.
It’s the quiet that’s particularly engaged my thoughts lately. These past weeks I’ve become almost obsessed with it as I’ve attempted to master the basics of podcasting. There’s nothing like walking through your home talking into a sensitive voice recorder to point out just how much noise there is that’s slipped your notice. (You can hear some of the noises here in my first podcast.)
Then I heard a news report about how whale song is getting lower. I knew that lower sounds travel further and it made sense to me that, as there were fewer and fewer whales, those with lower voices would have a survival advantage when it came to locating members of their own kind. However there’s another, obvious to the point of how-did-I-miss-it? aspect of the problem pointed out in the report: the oceans are getting much noisier, too, thanks to all the human-made traffic.
That naturally got me thinking about noise as it affects companion animals, an easy transition because I think about it a fair amount anyhow. There are few things that irritate me more than going into an animal-related facility (pet store, veterinary clinic, doggy daycare, training center, etc.) and be assaulted by loud music. If it’s heavy metal or punk rock blaring, the amount of time it takes this to register and me to leave would probably amaze someone much younger. I walk in, get hit by the noise, pirouette, and am out of there faster than you can say Sex Pistols.
But even though I intuitively believed that such musical backgrounds couldn’t be any better for the animals than being surrounded by noisy humans and especially arguing, discordant ones, I also recognized that I could be projecting my own preferences for quiet on members of other species…
…until I read Through a Dog’s Ear: Using Sound to Improve the Health and Behavior of Your Canine Companion by Joshua Leeds and Susan Wagner. Leeds is an authority on psychoacoustics who has developed specialized soundtracks to benefit humans in homes, clinics, and classrooms, whereas Wagner is a veterinary neurologist with a strong interest in the human-animal bond. The review material I received contained the book (which includes a starter CD), a well as CDs of calming music for use at home and in the car.
As it turned out, I might not have been among the best people to test-drive this concept because all of the selections were psychoacoustically altered classical selections. This makes sense because, as the book points out, there are studies that indicate that this is the kind of music animals like best. But as it turns out, I love classical music, too. Given what I know about the physiology of the human-animal bond, I did wonder how my dogs would have responded if I had hated classical music instead.
I chose to play the starter CD while I was reading the book lying on the couch, onto which I invited the dogs to test their response up close. After the usual jostling for position, everyone soon settled down and all were asleep in no time, even the cat. What I found particularly interesting is that this exercise provided further evidence of how much my deaf, brain-damaged corgi, BeeBee, is attuned to my physiology as well as that of the other dogs. Sure, I know that modeling rather than positive and negative reinforcement is their most deeply rooted form of learning. But it never ceases to amaze me how Bee has honed this skill. I enjoyed the starter Through a Dog’s Ear CD so much, I listened to the other two while the dogs and the cat slept and I read the rest of the book.
Part of the book discusses the use of acoustically designed music as part of the treatment for specific canine problems. I can appreciate the value of this because I spend a lot of time helping my clients and their animals achieve calmness using a variety of techniques. But what I especially liked was the book’s discussion of what we know about canine hearing and what this means for dogs living with the kinds of sounds that fill many contemporary human-canine households. For me, that awareness of canine auditory perception is the key ingredient necessary to make lasting changes in the home sound-environment, and one that many pet-owners may lack.
Additionally, once we understand where our dogs are coming from relative to hearing, we can use this knowledge to evaluate other environments. When we do that we might discover, for example, that a certain veterinary clinic or training class that exudes calmness might be more dog-friendly for our particular animal than the noise and excitement generated by another. For those who like that noise and excitement themselves, this may mean making a choice. But once you learn more about your dog’s auditory world inThrough a Dog’s Ear, making it might be easier than you think.
If they could do it, I suspect that most dogs would clap in appreciation for the sound-based knowledge shared in Through a Dog’s Ear. And if they did, I bet the sound of this would be a quiet one.
To find out more about Through a Dog’s Ear, the latest in dog/music research, hear music samples, and get some free music downloads, visit www.throughadogsear.com.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.
And quiet.
It’s the quiet that’s particularly engaged my thoughts lately. These past weeks I’ve become almost obsessed with it as I’ve attempted to master the basics of podcasting. There’s nothing like walking through your home talking into a sensitive voice recorder to point out just how much noise there is that’s slipped your notice. (You can hear some of the noises here in my first podcast.)
Then I heard a news report about how whale song is getting lower. I knew that lower sounds travel further and it made sense to me that, as there were fewer and fewer whales, those with lower voices would have a survival advantage when it came to locating members of their own kind. However there’s another, obvious to the point of how-did-I-miss-it? aspect of the problem pointed out in the report: the oceans are getting much noisier, too, thanks to all the human-made traffic.
That naturally got me thinking about noise as it affects companion animals, an easy transition because I think about it a fair amount anyhow. There are few things that irritate me more than going into an animal-related facility (pet store, veterinary clinic, doggy daycare, training center, etc.) and be assaulted by loud music. If it’s heavy metal or punk rock blaring, the amount of time it takes this to register and me to leave would probably amaze someone much younger. I walk in, get hit by the noise, pirouette, and am out of there faster than you can say Sex Pistols.
But even though I intuitively believed that such musical backgrounds couldn’t be any better for the animals than being surrounded by noisy humans and especially arguing, discordant ones, I also recognized that I could be projecting my own preferences for quiet on members of other species…
…until I read Through a Dog’s Ear: Using Sound to Improve the Health and Behavior of Your Canine Companion by Joshua Leeds and Susan Wagner. Leeds is an authority on psychoacoustics who has developed specialized soundtracks to benefit humans in homes, clinics, and classrooms, whereas Wagner is a veterinary neurologist with a strong interest in the human-animal bond. The review material I received contained the book (which includes a starter CD), a well as CDs of calming music for use at home and in the car.
As it turned out, I might not have been among the best people to test-drive this concept because all of the selections were psychoacoustically altered classical selections. This makes sense because, as the book points out, there are studies that indicate that this is the kind of music animals like best. But as it turns out, I love classical music, too. Given what I know about the physiology of the human-animal bond, I did wonder how my dogs would have responded if I had hated classical music instead.
I chose to play the starter CD while I was reading the book lying on the couch, onto which I invited the dogs to test their response up close. After the usual jostling for position, everyone soon settled down and all were asleep in no time, even the cat. What I found particularly interesting is that this exercise provided further evidence of how much my deaf, brain-damaged corgi, BeeBee, is attuned to my physiology as well as that of the other dogs. Sure, I know that modeling rather than positive and negative reinforcement is their most deeply rooted form of learning. But it never ceases to amaze me how Bee has honed this skill. I enjoyed the starter Through a Dog’s Ear CD so much, I listened to the other two while the dogs and the cat slept and I read the rest of the book.
Part of the book discusses the use of acoustically designed music as part of the treatment for specific canine problems. I can appreciate the value of this because I spend a lot of time helping my clients and their animals achieve calmness using a variety of techniques. But what I especially liked was the book’s discussion of what we know about canine hearing and what this means for dogs living with the kinds of sounds that fill many contemporary human-canine households. For me, that awareness of canine auditory perception is the key ingredient necessary to make lasting changes in the home sound-environment, and one that many pet-owners may lack.
Additionally, once we understand where our dogs are coming from relative to hearing, we can use this knowledge to evaluate other environments. When we do that we might discover, for example, that a certain veterinary clinic or training class that exudes calmness might be more dog-friendly for our particular animal than the noise and excitement generated by another. For those who like that noise and excitement themselves, this may mean making a choice. But once you learn more about your dog’s auditory world inThrough a Dog’s Ear, making it might be easier than you think.
If they could do it, I suspect that most dogs would clap in appreciation for the sound-based knowledge shared in Through a Dog’s Ear. And if they did, I bet the sound of this would be a quiet one.
To find out more about Through a Dog’s Ear, the latest in dog/music research, hear music samples, and get some free music downloads, visit www.throughadogsear.com.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.