Music has a powerful effect on our pet’s health, physically, emotionally and mentally. Research in music therapy supports its effectiveness in a wide variety of healthcare educational and every day settings.and heart rate are lowered, emotions are stabilized, and mood is elevated. Music therapy has been found to be helpful to:
Lowers Blood Pressure and Heart Rate
Promote Physical Rehabilitation
Harmonic music with pleasant sounding chords of piano, strings and cellos who’s size and reverberating chamber produces tones that resonate within the body to provide overtones and undertones that resonate sympathetically. The higher purer tones of the flute create a sympathetic resonance which reverberates into deeper levels and the responses can be in the range of pure joy and happiness. The reactions release hormones that rid the pet of stress, elevate mood and provide a sense of well being.
Classical music definitely has a calming effect on animals, it is known to be effective to:
calm and soothe
calm during thunder storms
calm during and after surgery or sickness
aid in healing
aid sleeping disorders
aid in emotional stress when settling into a new home
soothe when being left alone (separation anxiety)
Composer, Robert Boyd states: “that all too often an animal’s ability to appreciate music is underestimated. Animals are very responsive to sound. Dogs are walking ears and noses and it is well known that they hear higher frequencies than humans. They have a better range of hearing not so much in the low frequencies, but in the high. You can drop a pin close enough to a cat and its ear will twitch towards that noise which you wouldn’t have heard at all.” Robert Boyd Music
Dr. Deborah Wells, Belfast, Ireland In 2002, Belfast-based psychologist and animal behaviorist Deborah Wells undertook a research program to determine the influence of five types of auditory stimulation: human conversation, classical music, heavy metal music, pop music, and a silent control (no music at all).
From Dr. Wells’s study, we came to understand that classical music had a marked soothing effect on dogs in animal shelters when compared to the other types of auditory stimulation. In the discussion section of her published research, Dr. Wells stated, “Classical music resulted in dogs spending more of their time resting than any of the other experimental conditions of auditory stimulation. This type of music also resulted in a significantly lower level of barking.
Alianna Boone, a harpist who plays for ill family pets and produced a CD “Harp Music to Soothe the Savage Beast” – conducted one of the few studies on harp music’s effect on animals. In 2000, she performed for recently hospitalized canines at a Florida veterinary clinic. The hour-long sessions immediately began to lower heart rates, ease anxiety, and respiration in most cases.
It is believed that the harmonic overtones in classical music work at a cellular level and reduce stress levels. It appears that dogs must hear at least three minutes of music for it to take effect. Generally at this point, most dogs will start to sit down. Within 10 to 20 minutes, most lie in a resting state with some sleeping soundly.
There are also now numerous other CD’s and downloads of calming music available designed especially for calming anxious dogs. Why not give a couple a try?