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Get to know the Music that makes animals calmer
25th November, 2025 12:53 PM
You can find many different music playlists for dogs and cats online. Do they actually help animals relax?
When Serenity Strull, a photo editor at the BBC, rescued her dog Margot, she knew right away that the three-year-old pitbull mix struggled with anxiety.
“The shelter labelled her as shy and good with kids, but nervous and unsure about other dogs,” says Strull. Margot had been on Prozac, but it was causing seizures, so they decided to keep her off it.
Once she got Margot home, Strull quickly learned her dog’s biggest trigger was being left alone. She consulted various trainers and doctors and tried several different calming techniques to no avail. Finally, one thing worked: playing classical music or other instrumental tracks that didn’t have intense percussion.
One of Margot’s trainers recommended Through a Dog‘s Ear, a series of slow-tempo, predominantly piano compositions designed to help reduce stress in dogs. It was created by Joshua Leeds, a psychoacoustic expert (who studies how sound is perceived), and Susan Wagner, a veterinary neurologist, who has studied the effects of this music on dogs.
They observed over 150 dogs in private homes and kennels and found that more than 70 per cent of kennel dogs and 80 per cent of dogs in homes exhibited fewer anxiety symptoms (including pacing, trembling, and panting) after listening to predominantly piano music.
On her security camera, Strull saw the impact on Margot almost immediately. She says she used to receive texts from her neighbours complaining about Margot barking when she was left alone. Now, rather than pacing and barking, Margot peacefully naps, with Brahms or Beethoven on in the background, while her owner is gone. “There have been times when I haven’t gotten home till 4 am, and she’s just asleep.”
Other studies have come to similar conclusions. One from Queen’s University Belfast looked at the impact of three types of sound on kennel dogs and dogs in private homes: classical music, audiobooks, and silence (the control group). After closely observing behaviour changes, the researchers concluded that classical music had a notable calming effect in “acutely stressful situations”, such as a visit to the vet and a long car ride.
Not all styles of classical music are effective, though. Slow tempo (50-60 beats per minute or less), simple compositions with low or no percussive elements are best. That combination has been shown to reduce cortisol levels (the hormone that indicates a stress response) in dogs; however, the underlying reason for this effect is less well understood.
“The most sensible explanation is that there is something inherently relaxing about this genre of music, perhaps resulting in the release of chemicals that bring about a pleasurable state of mind,” says Deborah Wells, co-author of the study and an animal behaviour researcher at Queen’s University Belfast.
Wells has studied the effects of classical music on a range of species, including those found at zoos, such as elephants and gorillas. “Zoo-housed elephants and gorillas showed welfare advantages, spending less of their time engaged in stereotypic behaviour, and/or aggression,” Wells says. Other welfare advantages can include better eating and sleeping habits, stronger immune systems, and improved fertility.
Animals and humans have innately different hearing capabilities. Dogs have about three times the hearing range of humans (frequencies up to 65,000 Hz), so they can hear higher pitches and sounds much further away than the average human ear can.
Cats can detect even higher frequencies (up to 79,000 Hz), which is why a car horn down the street or even the crinkling of tin foil might send them running for the closet. Few studies have been conducted on the calming effects of music on cats; however, one study found a correlation.
Researchers put headphones on 12 cats while they were under sedation for neutering and played three types of sounds in succession: Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, and AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. The classical music choice resulted in the slowest breathing rate, the lowest heart rate, and the largest pupil dilation (all three indicators of a calming effect).
Classical music isn’t the only genre that can soothe pets. Reggae and soft rock, with simple rhythms, slower tempos, and no heavy percussion, have also been shown to relax dogs in shelters. Another study that observed 35 cats in a hospital found that instrumental music also lowered their respiratory rate, as long as it didn’t have very high or low frequencies (think piano, flute, and strings).
