Episode 41: Through a Dog’s Ear, Music for Animals

This week on Animal Instinct, host Celia Kutcher is delving into the interesting topic of music for animals. Lisa Spector is a concert pianist, Juilliard graduate, and canine music expert. By combining her passion for music with her love of dogs, she co-created Through a Dog’s Ear, the first music clinically demonstrated to relieve anxiety issues in dogs. Lisa heads the Through a Dog’s Ear “Music in Shelters” program, a project inspired by her volunteer work in shelters. Her piano playing is currently played in over 1,500 shelters worldwide, where it is helping increase adoption rates. In addition to calming the dogs, it helps create a quieter atmosphere, encouraging visitors to stay longer and adoption rates to increase. The donated music is also sent home with adopters and their new forever dogs. Explaining to Celia how she came to research and compose music that has been proven to calm dogs, she sheds a great deal of light on how much more in tune dogs are to sounds and humans’ reactions to sounds. Tune in to learn all about different types of listening! This program was brought to you by Heritage Foods USA. “I’ve always noticed that they [dogs] gravitate toward the piano… and particularly, I noticed the calming effect.” [3:00] “In the shelter environment it’s classical music that helps calms dogs.” [5:30] “Any anxiety issue has to do with stress.” [11:55] —Lisa Spector on Animal InstinctSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.