Do dogs and cats enjoy the music put on for them to hear?

Anyone who has a pet knows how hard it is to go out and leave the pet alone at home - even for just a few minutes. In order to understand how people were trying to deal with this situation, some research has raised interesting information about pet owners' habits.

In 2017, a survey of approximately 2, 000 British dog owners found that 40% of them left the radio on when they left home so that their pets would not feel alone. About 32% admitted leaving the TV on for the same purpose. Another study conducted in 2015 did not yield very different results. That is, the practice is more common than imagined, which generates, in many, the doubt if this care is appreciated by dogs and cats .

The 2002 study by Canadian psychologist Deborah Wells of Queen's University, Canada, can answer this question by analyzing the behavior of animals in this particular situation. The study involved playing some songs through speakers for a group of 50 dogs from the UK. At the end of the experiment, a CD was placed that contained only sounds from human voices. The reaction of the animals was observed.

Result

It was realized that music definitely had an effect on dogs. Classical music was associated with a calming effect on animals, which reduced their activities while listening to the melodies. Metallica's music seemed to make the dogs more agitated, on the other hand. In addition, the CD with human speech and one with pop music had no noticeable effect on dogs.

What about cats?

In the case of cats, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison realized that 46 cats who participated in another study responded better to the sounds that were developed especially for their hearing and paid less attention to classical music. It seems that cats do not have the same relationship with music as dogs, because cats can hear sounds with different frequencies.

This explains why each pet can identify with a particular type of music. What is known so far is that animals react better to the sounds that correspond to their own vocal range.