Can music make dogs calmer and happier? An American veterinarian, Dr. Pamela Fisher, believes so.
Fisher is a holistic vet from Ohio. Recently she received national press for overseeing the introduction of music in 1,100-plus animal shelters in the U.S. It’s called the Rescue Animal MP3 Project.
“The universal language of music touches our animal friends as shown by recent scientific studies,” it says on Fisher’s website.
The site offers examples of canine-music studies, which are fun to read. One study says dogs spent “more time resting and less time standing” when listening to classical music. But when exposed to heavy metal, they spend “significantly more of the time barking.”
The assumption is that barking reflects canine anxiety. But perhaps it’s the doggie equivalent of head-banging (i.e. the barks mean: “Wow, I find Megadeth extremely compelling!”).
Another study on Fisher’s site is about dogs who received “harp therapy.” Sixty minutes of harp music supposedly reduced canine restlessness and anxiety.
The study reports: “The harp therapy group demonstrated a gradual decline in respiration rates over the one hour in contrast to the control group — which remained unchanged during the same period.”
Well … the harp is OK. But 60 minutes of it would be like being trapped in a new age bookshop on Salt Spring Island. Perhaps the dip in respiration rate reflected a drop in the doggies’ collective will to live.
Our dog, Ollie the Pug, is exposed to music mainly in the morning. That’s when I like to crank it up, girding my psychic loins for the day.
Here’s the routine. I get up and down half of a coffee cup of espresso. (I need this massive caffeine jolt like Stevie Nicks needed Bolivian marching powder while recording Rumours … even more so during the Tusk sessions.)
Then Ollie must be fed. He’s sleepy in the morning, recovering from the previous day’s routine of grunting, napping, tongue-lolling and staring at me in case there are snacks.
So I stimulate him into action by rubbing his stomach vigorously and then placing a sliver of hard-boiled egg on his kibble. After eating, as a celebration, Ollie seizes his toy pug dog and dashes into the bedroom. There he bites his toy’s nose crazily while keeping a wary eye on me, lest more eggs bits be forthcoming.
And that’s when the music starts (my wife is already at work, so I can crank my Panasonic desktop stereo to the point of overload).
When it comes to music-listening, I have an odd habit. I listen to the same album, over and over, every day, for months at a time. This might sound like an anecdote from The Seven Habits of Highly Autistic People. But I prefer to think of it as a way to really get into the music. You know, really immerse oneself, like an art restorer working on Leonardo’s Last Supper. Only it’s disc two from Wilco’s Being There.
My compulsive listening reached a peak with The Best of Jackson Browne. I never particularly enjoyed Jackson Browne in his 1970s heyday, dismissing him as a fey sidekick of James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. But for some reason, I became obsessed with this greatest-hits album, especially the track Lawyers in Love (the phrase “the strangled cries of lawyers in love” especially intrigues me).
Anyway, Ollie’s reaction to The Best of Jackson Browne was always as follows:
1. Doctor My Eyes: subject lies on carpet, chews pug toy, snorts.
2. Jamaica Say You Will: subject lies on carpet, chews pug toy, snorts.
3. Rest of The Best of Jackson Browne: reaction identical to Doctor My Eyes, Jamaica Say You Will.
The Meters album Looka Py-Py also got endless spins on the Chamberlain morning hit-parade. Surely Ollie would find their mesmerizing brand of clipped, minimalist funk something to get excited about. Or perhaps it would exert a calming influence?
The results were exactly the same as The Best of Jackson Browne.
My scientific conclusion: Ollie, a corpulent pug dog residing in Saanich, B.C., is not particularly affected or made happier by music. (Related note: If subject is exposed to television programs featuring bird tweets, he goes absolutely mental.)
Next week: If Danny Williams and Stephen Harper went on a camping trip together, would they have any fun?