Music industry going to the dogs

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Misty Harris, CanWest News Service

The music industry is literally going to the dogs as record labels churn out albums aimed at Spot and Fido.

Compositions for canines -- not to mention cats, parrots and even gorillas -- are proving to be contenders on store shelves in the wake of claims that certain types of melodies have a calming effect on animals.

Promising to help treat everything from separation anxiety and excess barking to hyperactivity and fear of lightning storms, pet CDs piggyback on the success of music therapy for children -- and shrewdly so, since most animal owners view their furry friends as family.

"The general consensus is that relatively rhythmic, repetitive musical sounds -- at least over the short-term -- can be calming for dogs," says Stanley Coren, a professor at the University of British Columbia and one of the world's leading dog behaviourists. "Having said that, the effects aren't overwhelming and we don't know whether there's a satiation effect where (music) might work once but not subsequently." The best known study in this area, published in Animal Welfare in 2002, involved 50 shelter dogs exposed to different types of sounds. When listening to heavy metal, the dogs became agitated and barked excessively. A classical music CD, by contrast, caused the pooches to become sweet-tempered and quiet.

Research with other animals has yielded similar results, with exposure to classical music boosting egg production in factory hens and increasing milk production in cows.

"(A pet CD) does at least as much good as leaving the radio on, and maybe a wee bit more if the selections are chosen properly," says Coren, noting that instrumental music is preferred to lyrical selections.

"But to the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of CDs done (for animals) have been made without any research.

It's just somebody's personal notion that these songs are going to help." Skip Haynes is the founder of Laurel Canyon Animal Company, which exclusively produces music for dogs, cats, parrots, dolphins and gorillas. The content of each track is guided by an animal intuitive who's said to telepathically communicate with animals to discern their tastes -- samba is apparently a favourite, while Johnny Cash leaves them howling for mercy.

"When we started this, my personal opinion of animal psychics was 'Miss Cleo,' " says Haynes, referring to the disgraced infomercial psychic, "but as we worked with the communicator and saw what happened, I became a total believer." The label's latest CD, Songs to Make Dogs Happy, was overseen by Ask the Animals author Kim Ogden. The Illinoisbased communicator tested each of the album's songs with four-legged focus groups across the country, later reporting the canine's "comments" back to Haynes.

The result is an album full of uncomplicated lyrical compositions with such titles as Squeaky Deaky, You're a Good Dog, and Scratch my Back.

"There's not a word that a dog can't recognize in these songs," says Ogden.

Dr. Nicholas Dodman, program director of the Animal Behavior Department of Clinical Sciences at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, isn't convinced.

"(Dogs) don't understand sentences.

They can't put two words together. So they're not going to understand lyrics," he says.

However, the veterinary behaviourist does note that calming CDs or ambient noise -- such as a recording of pet owners going about their daily routines -- has the potential to ease animals through the rst 45 minutes of separation anxiety.

"We're trying to put on auditory wallpaper that's going to make the dog feel more comfortable," explains Dodman, author of The Dog Who Loved Too Much.

"While it hasn't been shown that dogs conclusively benefi t from music of any kind, one might nevertheless project that it's preferable to the sound of silence." Although Nielsen Soundscan doesn't track pet music as a category, popular animal-oriented titles on Amazon.com include While You Are Gone: Music Pets Love, Janet Marlow's Relaxation Music for Dogs & Cats, Canine Lullabies: A Day in the Life of Lucky and The World's Best Dog Music CD Ever.