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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nIn my webinars on dogs and sound<\/a>, I discuss the glaring inadequacies of the dogs and music studies. The problems are now being covered in detail by scholars in the field as well (Kriengwatana et al., 2022; Kriengwatana et al., 2025; Lindig et al., 2020; Snowdon, 2021). In my opinion, the most important issue is that the studies designed to assess whether dogs benefit from music have used entire pieces of music before testing dogs\u2019 abilities to perceive the basics. Music is complex. No researcher started with simple melodies; no one separately tested whether dogs can distinguish between consonance and dissonance, which is key to the western classical and pop music they usually test. No one separated out rhythm to see what dogs could discern. No one tested to see if there were certain instruments or vocal sounds the dogs responded to. In other words, no one separated the variables. Instead, they compared dogs\u2019 responses to whole playlists of, for example, \u201cclassical\u201d music, pop, rock, or reggae.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The many other issues with the studies can\u2019t be addressed until that one is.<\/p>\n The basics I listed above (and far more) have been tested with other species, but not dogs. I believe people were in a rush to find something that could help dogs in distressing situations, such as in shelters or the vet\u2019s office. But the result of testing whole playlists before exploring dogs\u2019 responses to the building blocks of music is that even if we were to find a piece of music that strongly and positively affected dogs, we wouldn\u2019t know why<\/strong>. We wouldn\u2019t know what aspect of the music was affecting them, because all variables were lumped together. <\/p>\n Although not a test of music, per se, I should mention the excellent work of Dr. Patricia McConnell (1990), who found that four short, rapidly repeating rising notes were more effective at prompting a dog to come when called and increased motor activity levels. This is the type of work we need when investigating dogs\u2019 responses to music.<\/p>\n Two sets of music researchers have now performed some more basic studies. First, I\u2019ll review what we know about dogs\u2019 abilities to discriminate sound from older studies, then I\u2019ll report on the good news.<\/p>\n Here are a few things we know about dogs\u2019 hearing abilities as they apply to music. I cover this in a little more detail in my blog post, \u201cHow Does Dogs\u2019 Hearing Compare To Humans\u2019?\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n There is strong evidence that dogs can discriminate pitch down to tiny differences, much smaller than the Western diatonic music \u201chalf step\u201d (Andreyev, 1934; Dworkin, 1935). The half step is generally the limit for testing human pitch discrimination or perfect pitch.<\/p>\n Andreyev (1934) also tested dogs\u2019 ability to discriminate between different speeds of the ticks of a metronome, and they could detect a difference of 2 beats per minute.<\/p>\n There is research evidence that dogs can discriminate differences in timbre. Timbre is defined as:<\/p>\n a sensory attribute of sound that enables one to judge differences between sounds having the same pitch, loudness, and duration (Gelfand 2010, p. 227). <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Timbre is the quality that enables you to tell (or be able to learn) the difference between an oboe and a clarinet playing the same sequence of notes. <\/p>\n A study in 1929 showed that dogs could discriminate the difference between the same note played on a tuning fork or a keyboard instrument (Razran & Warden). <\/p>\n The ability to discriminate timbre is present when dogs can tell their family members\u2019 voices apart.<\/p>\n These studies tell us nothing about dogs\u2019 preferences<\/em> in sound and music. But only by knowing that dogs can discriminate between these aspects of sound can we hypothesize that they might have preferences between them. So they are a start.<\/p>\n These studies started in 2002 with a study by Wells et al. I have a list of 25 of them here.<\/a> In most of them, playlists or individual pieces in certain genres were played in the presence of dogs and their responses were recorded in various ways. One of them studied dogs\u2019 ability to discriminate a musical element, i.e., it was not about relaxation. <\/p>\n Most of these studies are the kind I disparaged above because they lumped together way too many variables.<\/p>\n But a playlist study in 2020 and another in 2024 that studied one building block of music used better methods.<\/p>\n Here are the researchers who finally broke the trend.<\/p>\n The Amaya et al. study from 2020 played whole pieces of music but separated out variables to change one at a time. The Pinelli et al. study (2024) tested the ability of dogs to discriminate a building block of music: a short sequence of tones.<\/p>\n The study, \u201cEffects of music pitch and tempo on the behaviour of kennelled dogs,\u201d separated the variables of pitch and tempo when exposing dogs to playlists of music (Amaya et al., 2020). They used complex pieces of music, which is problematic for the reasons I stated above. But they showed good practice in many ways.<\/p>\n First, rather than choosing a genre of music, which can cover a broad range of tonality, rhythm, instrumentation, and more<\/a>, they stipulated characteristics of the music that they deemed desirable. They filtered Spotify to find such pieces. They selected pieces with a tempo of 70 or fewer beats per minute, a \u201cpositive\/euphoric valence\u201d as determined by Spotify\u2019s rating system, and \u201clow energy,\u201d again determined on a numerical scale by Spotify. In addition, they selected pieces by (usually) one instrument, the piano, and selected pieces that all started at approximately the same pitch to be uniform when the pitch was changed.<\/p>\n But the standout characteristic of this study is that they took the same pieces of music and changed only one variable at a time. They played the music\/sound for dogs under six conditions: a control (unaltered playlist), white noise with no music, the playlist at both a faster tempo and a slower one, and the playlist with raised pitch and lowered pitch.<\/p>\n This study had surprising results. Only one condition appeared to affect the dogs\u2019 behavior. The lowered pitch condition was accompanied by behavior indicating the dogs were not as relaxed. It was speculated that dogs may associate lower pitches with growling.<\/p>\n Several of the \u201cmusic for dogs\u201d companies advertise that their dog music is lowered in pitch to promote relaxation. Perhaps now they are scrambling to change their claims.<\/p>\n Another great thing about this study is that the alterations to the music were described well and were replicable. I replicated them myself.<\/p>\n I found one of the pieces from their playlist: Lavender Hills by Brian Crain<\/a>.<\/p>\n I lowered the pitch using Audacity as they described in the paper and offer this excerpt under fair use for educational purposes. You can compare it to the full original at the link in the previous paragraph. Note the very low frequencies when you listen to the altered version. This is the transformation that may have aroused or bothered the dogs.<\/p>\nWhat Information Do We Already Have?<\/h2>\n
Pitch<\/h3>\n
Speed\/Rhythm<\/h3>\n
Timbre<\/h3>\n
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The \u201cModern\u201d Studies on Music for Dogs<\/h2>\n
The Happy Exceptions<\/h2>\n
Amaya et al.<\/h3>\n
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