Music and Auditory Enrichment for Dogs: What the Evidence Supports

1. What the Question Actually Is

1.1 Several Claims Hide Inside "Music Calms Dogs"

At least four questions need to be separated. Does added sound change observable behavior? Does it alter physiology? Does it change affect rather than only activity or arousal? And is any effect specific to music rather than to speech, masking, familiarity or other acoustic properties?

The literature gives partial answers to the first two. Evidence for a consistently positive affective effect is much weaker, and no single genre or "dog music" format has emerged as a reliably therapeutic stimulus.

1.2 Where the Evidence Comes From

The historical core comes from rescue shelters and kennels, where background barking, doors, staff activity and confinement create an acoustic environment very different from a quiet home. That matters because added sound may alter the salience of those existing noises rather than exert a specifically musical effect.

More recent studies have expanded the field to pet dogs in controlled owner-separation experiments, simulated veterinary visits, grooming settings, free-choice acoustic tests and cognitive-bias paradigms (Kinnaird & Wells, 2022, 2025; Guérineau et al., 2024; King et al., 2022; Krupa et al., 2025; Beecy et al., 2025).

1.3 Behavior, Physiology and Affect Are Different Outcomes

Time spent lying down, barking frequency, cortisol, heart-rate variability and cognitive bias do not measure the same thing. A study can therefore find a behavioral change without showing a physiologic change, or a physiologic change without demonstrating that the dog's experience became more positive (how behavioral measures are chosen).

1.3a Why the Genre Question Is the Wrong Question

Most popular coverage reduces this literature to a ranking of genres. The underlying studies compared recordings that differ in tempo, loudness, dynamic range and spectral content at once, so a genre label names a bundle of acoustic variables rather than a finding.

The work that manipulated single properties directly is the exception and is discussed below. A household choosing by genre is choosing by the least informative criterion available.

1.4 Why the Topic Deserves Care

Auditory enrichment is inexpensive and easy to implement. That is an advantage, but it also makes it easy to substitute a playlist for a more difficult intervention. The useful question is not whether music is "good for dogs". It is whether a particular soundscape produces a measurable benefit for a particular dog in a particular setting without adding another uncontrollable stimulus.

2. What Dogs Hear

2.1 Hearing Range Is Not a Playlist Prescription

Dogs can hear substantially higher frequencies than humans, although much of the energy in ordinary recorded music falls within the range shared by both species (what is known about canine hearing). A wider hearing range does not by itself tell us which music a dog should hear or whether music is enriching.

2.2 Volume Matters, but There Is No Validated Therapeutic Level

A confined dog may have little opportunity to increase its distance from a speaker, so unnecessary sound intensity should be avoided. That is a sensible welfare precaution. It is not the same as having a validated decibel target for calming music.

The available literature does not establish that "lower than feels right to a human" is an optimal rule. A 2025 grooming pilot, for example, used music at 75 dB and reported calmer behavior during some procedures, but the study was small and methodologically limited; it cannot define a recommended volume for general use (Krupa et al., 2025).

2.3 Music Is a Human Category

Calling a stimulus "classical", "reggae" or "relaxation music" bundles many acoustic features together: tempo, spectral content, pitch, amplitude variation, rhythm, timbre and familiarity. Kriengwatana et al. (2025) argue that animal-music research needs to specify the acoustic properties being tested rather than assuming that human genre labels map onto animal perception.

2.4 Sound Is Often Imposed

In a kennel or crate, dogs usually cannot turn the sound off. That makes auditory enrichment different from enrichment the animal can approach or leave. Any interpretation of a positive group average should therefore allow for individual dogs that may prefer less sound (why control over a stimulus matters).

2.4a What "Silence" Means in Kennel Studies

The control condition in this research is almost never silence. It is the ordinary acoustic environment of a kennel: barking, doors, trolleys, staff, ventilation. Comparing music against that compares two noisy conditions, one with added structure.

That is the main reason kennel findings should not be read as showing that dogs prefer sound to quiet. The comparison with genuine quiet has rarely been available in these settings (why the comparison condition decides the claim).

2.5 Quiet Can Be a Real Alternative

The older kennel literature often used "no added audio" as the control, which was still a noisy kennel environment. Guérineau et al. (2024) addressed the preference question more directly in pet dogs by allowing them to move between a sound zone and a quiet zone. Dogs clearly avoided agonistic dog vocalizations, but neither classical nor relaxing music produced a clear overall preference or aversion.

That result does not show that dogs prefer silence. It shows that music should not be assumed to be preferred simply because it changes behavior in a kennel.

3. What the Kennel Studies Actually Show

3.1 The Foundational Shelter Comparison

Wells, Graham & Hepper (2002) compared classical music, pop, heavy metal, human conversation and a control condition in rescue dogs. Classical music was associated with more resting, while heavy metal was associated with more agitation. The outcome was behavioral; the study did not demonstrate a specific emotional mechanism.

3.2 Purpose-Composed Music

Kogan, Schoenfeld-Tacher & Simon (2012) compared several auditory conditions in kenneled dogs, including material marketed or composed for dogs. The study did not establish a clear general advantage of species-targeted material over ordinary recordings.

3.3 A Fixed Playlist and Habituation

Bowman, Dowell & Evans (2015) used a crossover design with 50 rehoming-center dogs and measured behavior, salivary cortisol and heart-rate variability across periods with and without classical music. Behavioral and cardiac measures changed during initial exposure, while cortisol did not show a consistent corresponding pattern. By later exposure days, the early difference was much less apparent.

The study therefore provides evidence that responses to a fixed auditory condition can change rapidly with repeated exposure. It does not establish that every form of auditory enrichment "stops working after one day".

3.4 Variation May Help Maintain an Effect

Bowman et al. (2017) subsequently exposed 38 kenneled dogs to different genres across several days. Dogs spent more time lying and less time standing while music was played overall, and soft rock and reggae were associated with some of the larger HRV changes.

This provides direct support for the possibility that varying recordings can maintain behavioral effects across several days. It is not a decisive fixed-playlist-versus-rotating-playlist trial, so rotation should not be treated as a proven universal solution to habituation.

3.5 Cortisol Is Not a Valence Meter

Salivary cortisol reflects HPA-axis activity and depends on sampling time, latency, individual variation and the stressor itself. It does not directly tell us whether an animal is experiencing positive or negative affect (what cortisol does and does not measure).

3.6 HRV Also Needs Context

Heart-rate variability contains information about autonomic regulation, but it is affected by heart rate, breathing, posture, movement and analysis method. When the behavioral outcome is increased lying or reduced activity, physiological and behavioral measures are not fully independent.

3.7 Acoustic Features Have Been Manipulated

It is no longer accurate to say that tempo or pitch has never been tested. Amaya et al. (2021) exposed ten kenneled dogs to tracks differing in pitch and tempo, as well as white noise and a control. Low-pitch tracks were associated with increased alertness, while the small sample and mixed results did not yield a simple acoustic recipe for calming dogs.

The research gap is therefore not that acoustic properties have never been manipulated. It is that the evidence remains sparse and does not identify a robust combination of tempo, spectrum, dynamics or rhythm that reliably improves welfare.

3.7a Group Means Hide Individuals

Every result in this field is an average across dogs in a facility. A condition that raises resting overall can still be aversive for some animals, and none of these studies was designed to detect that.

In a shelter the trade-off may be acceptable; at home it is unnecessary, because a single dog can be observed directly (why individuals differ from the group mean).

3.8 What the Review Literature Concludes

Lindig, McGreevy & Crean (2020) concluded that auditory enrichment can alter canine behavior, but studies differ substantially in design, stimuli and outcome measures. That remains a fair description of the field even after newer work.

4. Music Is Not the Only Auditory Stimulus

4.1 The Audiobook Finding

Brayley & Montrose (2016) found that dogs in a rehoming kennel spent more time resting under an audiobook condition than under several alternative sound conditions.

4.2 What That Finding Does and Does Not Mean

Audiobooks show that behavioral effects are not unique to music. They do not identify the active mechanism. Human-sounding speech, continuous structured sound, masking of intermittent kennel noise, novelty or other acoustic characteristics remain possible explanations.

This matters because Kinnaird & Wells (2022) did not reproduce a broad calming audiobook effect during short owner separation in pet dogs. The value of the audiobook result is therefore that it broadens the mechanism question, not that it proves spoken voice is the answer.

4.2a Human Voice Versus Human Presence

An audiobook supplies a human-sounding stimulus without a person being there, which is an interesting halfway condition. Whether dogs treat recorded speech as a social signal, as ordinary structured sound, or as something between the two is unresolved (how dogs process voices and sounds).

The applied version is common: people leave the radio on for a dog left alone, and the literature offers weak support for the practice without indicating whether speech, music or something else is the relevant choice.

4.3 Choice Changes the Question

Guérineau et al. (2024) gave 90 pet dogs control over exposure by dividing a room into sound and quiet zones. Dogs avoided agonistic dog vocalizations, but music did not produce a clear overall preference. In a second experiment with 20 dogs, previous regular exposure to classical music was associated with greater use of the sound zone and more relaxed behavior, although an overall preference for classical music was still not clearly demonstrated.

That finding introduces a variable missing from most kennel studies: the dog's own choice.

5. Pet Dogs and Short-Term Stress

5.1 Owner Separation Was Tested in a Laboratory, Not at Home

Kinnaird & Wells (2022) tested pet dogs in a controlled university research room during temporary owner separation. In one experiment, classical music was associated with faster settling and lying down, but most other behaviors were unaffected. An audiobook mainly increased attention toward the speaker.

The overall conclusion was modest: auditory stimulation offered few clear welfare advantages during this short-term separation paradigm.

5.1a What the Home Question Is Really Asking

Leaving audio on for a dog that is alone is meant to do one of three different things, and households rarely distinguish them: cover street and stairwell noise, provide company, or induce calm. Each implies different material and a different way of judging success.

The masking version is the most plausible and the easiest to check. The company version borrows from the audiobook result without being tested directly, and the calm version is the one the habituation data undercut (what is known about separation-related behavior).

5.2 Dog-Specific Relaxation Music Did Not Clearly Reduce Short-Term Stress

Beecy et al. (2025) randomly assigned 37 pet dogs undergoing brief owner separation to dog-targeted relaxation music, human relaxation music or no music. Activity did not differ between conditions, and the only significant behavioral difference was more grooming in the dog-music condition.

Because grooming can occur in different affective contexts, the result cannot be read simply as "more relaxed". The study found limited evidence that either music condition reduced short-term stress.

5.3 A Cognitive-Bias Test Found No Short-Term Mood Effect

Kinnaird & Wells (2025) tested 45 pet dogs under classical music, audiobook or silence while measuring approach latencies to ambiguous locations in a cognitive-bias task. The auditory conditions did not significantly alter responses to the ambiguous positions.

This does not prove that sound never affects canine affect. It does show why quieter behavior alone should not be equated with a more positive emotional state.

5.4 What a Household Can Observe

At home, a camera can record latency to settle, vocalization, pacing, orientation to external sounds, movement between rooms and recovery after disturbances. Comparing representative periods with and without added audio can be useful as an individual observation exercise.

There is no validated "two-week protocol" and no fixed number of minutes after which music should be declared effective or ineffective. The point is repeated, comparable observation rather than a predetermined duration.

5.5 A Departure Track Can Become a Cue

If the same audio reliably precedes owner departure, it can acquire predictive meaning through ordinary associative learning (how cues acquire meaning). Whether that prediction is neutral, helpful or aversive depends on the dog's experience of what follows.

It is therefore plausible that a "calming playlist" can become part of a departure sequence. The literature does not establish that this is a common cause of worsening separation problems.

6. Clinics, Grooming and Anesthesia

6.1 Veterinary Waiting Areas: Human Satisfaction Is Not Dog Anxiety

Engler & Bain (2017) compared different classical music conditions in a veterinary hospital. Owner satisfaction differed between conditions, but the study did not establish a convincing reduction in canine anxiety. The owner outcome should therefore not be converted into a claim that calmer music made the dogs calmer.

6.1a Why Clinic Findings Include the People

Music in a waiting room changes how the people in it feel and behave, and dogs respond to the people. Any effect measured in a clinic is a combined effect unless the design separates them, which is a general problem in applied settings rather than a criticism of a particular study (how human state transfers to dogs).

That is not a reason to dismiss such measures. A waiting room that calms owners is worth having; it is simply not evidence about what the sound does to the dog.

6.2 A Mock Veterinary Visit Found No Consistent Calming Effect

King et al. (2022) used a randomized crossover design during simulated veterinary visits and measured behavioral and physiologic stress indicators. Music did not produce a consistent beneficial effect across cortisol, salivary IgA and behavioral measures; one facial measure was actually less relaxed under music.

This is an important null result because it tests a setting in which auditory enrichment is commonly recommended.

6.3 Grooming: An Interesting but Weak Pilot

Krupa et al. (2025) observed 15 companion dogs over three grooming sessions: first without music, then with Beethoven and Chopin. Higher "calmness" scores were reported during several grooming procedures under music.

The study is useful as a pilot, not as strong causal evidence. The control session always came first, the order was not randomized, one scorer rated the dogs, and the same dogs were already familiar with repeated grooming visits. Practice effects, order effects and expectation therefore remain plausible alternatives.

6.4 Anesthesia Is a Different Question

Georgiou et al. (2023) examined music in relation to sedation and propofol requirements. A 2024 randomized blinded crossover study by Georgiou and colleagues then tested 20 dogs undergoing skin surgery and found lower isoflurane and fentanyl requirements under Chopin or Mozart than under no music.

Those findings are pharmacologic and physiologic outcomes in anesthetized or sedated dogs. They do not establish that a conscious dog in a waiting room experiences less fear or a more positive emotional state.

7. What Mechanisms Are Plausible?

7.1 Masking

Added sound can reduce the contrast between sudden external noises and the acoustic background. In a kennel, that could make barking, doors or footsteps less salient. This is acoustically plausible but has not been cleanly isolated as the active mechanism in the main music studies.

7.2 Predictability and Acoustic Uniformity

Continuous sound can make an environment more acoustically uniform. Predictability is a plausible welfare-relevant variable, but it should not be assumed to explain music effects unless it is experimentally manipulated (how predictability differs from control).

7.3 Familiarity and Learned Association

Guérineau et al. (2024) provide direct evidence that prior exposure can matter: dogs accustomed to classical music used the sound zone more and showed more relaxed behavior than dogs without that history. Familiarity is therefore a serious candidate mechanism rather than background noise in the design.

7.4 Acoustic Properties

Pitch and tempo have begun to be manipulated experimentally (Amaya et al., 2021), but there is still no validated combination of tempo, frequency spectrum, dynamic range or rhythm that reliably produces a welfare benefit across dogs and settings.

7.5 Habituation Is Real but Not Universal

Repeated exposure to a fixed playlist can reduce an initial response, as Bowman et al. (2015) showed. Bowman et al. (2017) also found continuing behavioral effects when genres varied across days. The appropriate conclusion is not that music inevitably becomes inert, but that novelty, repetition and variation can change the response over time.

7.5a The Novelty Reading

One account of the habituation finding is that part of the initial effect was novelty rather than any property of the music. A new structured stimulus attracts attention and changes behavior; once familiar, it does neither.

If that is right, the implication is unwelcome for anyone selling a permanent solution: whatever is played will stop working, and rotation buys time rather than solving the problem.

7.6 Activity Is Not Valence

More lying, less barking or reduced movement can be compatible with lower arousal. They do not by themselves establish positive affect. Conversely, a still dog should not automatically be interpreted as shut down or helpless (why behavior is not an identified emotional state).

The 2025 cognitive-bias study is valuable precisely because it tested an affect-related outcome and found no short-term difference between classical music, audiobook and silence (Kinnaird & Wells, 2025).

8. What Follows for Practice

8.1 Keep Sound at a Moderate, Tolerated Level

There is no evidence-based universal volume for "calming" audio. Avoid unnecessary intensity, consider the dog's distance from the speaker, and give the dog the opportunity to move away where possible.

8.1a Where the Volume Advice Comes From

The advice to keep audio quiet is not derived from a music study. It follows from canine hearing sensitivity and from the plain fact that a dog in a crate or a run cannot increase its distance from a speaker.

Presented honestly it is a reasoned precaution rather than a finding, and the cost of error is asymmetric: too quiet does nothing, too loud adds a stressor to an environment that already has one.

8.2 Do Not Assume More Hours Means More Benefit

Continuous playback is not supported as a general welfare rule. Responses can habituate, and dogs may show no preference for music when quiet is available. In a home where genuine quiet is possible, audio should be treated as an optional environmental variable rather than a default requirement.

8.3 Familiar Audio Can Be Introduced Outside the Difficult Context

If sound is going to be used during travel, grooming, storms or absence, introducing it first in neutral situations is a reasonable precaution. That may reduce novelty and allows the dog's response to be observed before the difficult event. This is a practical inference, not a treatment effect established by the music literature.

8.4 Masking Should Not Mean "As Loud As Possible"

For fireworks, building work or a noisy stairwell, sound may be used as one element of environmental management. The aim is to reduce the salience of external noise without creating a second aversive sound source. Moderate, tolerated background audio is more defensible than trying to overpower bangs with very loud broadband noise (what is known about noise sensitivity).

8.5 Measure More Than Stillness

Useful observations include latency to settle, vocalization, pacing, startle responses, orientation to outside sounds, movement away from the speaker, voluntary return to the area, recovery after disturbances and normal maintenance behaviors. One behavior should not carry the whole interpretation.

8.5a Introduce It Before It Is Needed

Audio switched on at the moment a thunderstorm starts becomes part of the storm. Anything meant to help in a difficult situation has to be established in easy ones first, which is the same principle that governs any other predictive cue (how a cue acquires its meaning).

The same logic explains why a track used only before departures turns into a departure signal rather than a calming one.

8.6 Music Is Not a Treatment for a Clinical Problem

No current evidence supports music alone as treatment for separation-related disorder, noise phobia or another clinical behavioral condition. It can be a supporting environmental measure inside a broader plan; if it is the entire plan, the intervention is too narrow.

8.6a A Reasonable Default

For a dog with no particular problem, the defensible arrangement is quiet as the baseline and sound used deliberately: during a known noisy period, during an absence that would otherwise be filled with street noise, or as part of an established rest routine.

For a dog with a noise or separation problem the same applies with one addition: the audio sits at the edge of a plan, and if it is the plan, the plan is too thin.

8.7 Common Situations

Fireworks. Use sound, if the dog tolerates it, as part of environmental management alongside a protected location and an evidence-based treatment plan when fear is clinically significant. Do not equate successful masking with treatment of the fear itself.

Shelters and boarding. This remains the setting with the strongest historical evidence for behavioral effects. Variation across days may help maintain responses, but individual access to quieter areas remains important.

Owner absence. Pet-dog studies show only modest or absent effects during short-term separation. A camera is more informative than assuming that a playlist provides company or reduces distress.

Veterinary and grooming settings. Findings are mixed. A small grooming pilot is positive, while a mock-vet study found no consistent stress reduction. Audio should therefore be an adjunct rather than a substitute for handling, environmental design and cooperative-care procedures.

8.7a Why This Topic Attracts Overclaiming

Auditory enrichment is cheap, looks harmless and requires no change in anyone's behavior, which makes it easy to recommend and easy to believe in. Those same features make it a poor substitute for the measures that would address a separation problem or a noise phobia (what the treatment literature supports).

Used as a supporting measure it is defensible. Used as the plan, it postpones the work that would help (what is known about noise sensitivity).

8.7b Fireworks Are a Masking Problem

For fireworks the realistic goal is covering sudden onsets, which needs continuous broadband sound at a level that competes with the bangs rather than a quiet playlist. Even then the room, the hiding place and the preparation in the preceding weeks do more than the audio does.

Calling that relaxation oversells it. It is acoustic management, and it works best as one element of a plan built well before the season (how noise fear is established and changed).

8.8 A Practical Individual Comparison

For one dog, compare several representative situations with and without added audio while keeping the rest of the setup as similar as practical. Record multiple behaviors rather than asking only whether the dog "looked calmer". This is an observation exercise, not a validated diagnostic protocol.

8.9 What to Tell a Household

Three sentences cover it. Sound can help a little in a noisy or stressful environment, mostly by covering other noise. It becomes familiar, so use it deliberately rather than constantly. And if the dog does not settle with it, the audio is not the missing piece.

The fourth, for anyone who asks about products: material marketed as species-specific has not outperformed ordinary recordings in the studies that tested it, and a speaker placed where the dog cannot move away from it is the more consequential detail (what is known about canine hearing).

9. Summary at a Glance

Kennel studies show behavioral effects, not a universal calming law. Classical music has been associated with more resting in some shelter studies, while other recordings and genres produce different group-level responses (Wells et al., 2002; Bowman et al., 2015, 2017).

Habituation can occur. Responses to a fixed classical playlist weakened with repeated exposure in Bowman et al. (2015), while varied genres in Bowman et al. (2017) continued to produce behavioral changes across several days.

Audiobooks can alter behavior too. This shows that effects are not unique to music, but it does not identify speech, masking or predictability as the active ingredient (Brayley & Montrose, 2016).

Dogs do not clearly choose music over quiet. In a 90-dog free-choice test, music produced neither a clear preference nor a clear aversion overall; familiarity influenced responses in a smaller follow-up sample (Guérineau et al., 2024).

Recent pet-dog stress studies are cautious. Dog-targeted and human relaxation music produced little evidence of reduced short-term stress in 37 dogs (Beecy et al., 2025).

Short-term affect was not shifted in a cognitive-bias test. Classical music, audiobook and silence did not significantly differ in 45 pet dogs (Kinnaird & Wells, 2025).

Acoustic properties have been tested, but no recipe exists. A small pitch/tempo experiment found behavioral differences without identifying a general calming formula (Amaya et al., 2021).

Anesthesia findings are not conscious-welfare findings. Reduced anesthetic or analgesic requirements under music are interesting perioperative results, not evidence that a conscious dog feels safer (Georgiou et al., 2023, 2024).

10. Research Gaps and Critical Appraisal

The evidence base is broader than kennel research but still context-heavy. Pet-dog separation, choice, cognitive-bias, clinic and grooming studies now exist, yet each uses a different stressor and outcome.

Preference and welfare are not the same construct. The Guérineau choice paradigm is a major advance, but choosing or avoiding a sound does not by itself quantify long-term welfare effects.

Acoustic mechanisms remain unresolved. Pitch and tempo have been manipulated, but systematic factorial work on tempo, spectrum, dynamics, rhythm, intensity and familiarity is still sparse.

True masking has not been isolated. Many discussions assume music helps by covering other noise, but few experiments manipulate the external noise independently of the added audio.

Long-term effects in pet dogs remain poorly studied. Most newer household-dog experiments examine short exposures. Whether repeated home use helps, becomes neutral, or becomes aversive for particular dogs is largely unknown.

Individual differences need much better study. Noise sensitivity, age, prior exposure, hearing ability and temperament may all alter responses. Familiarity already appears relevant, but prediction at the individual-dog level is weak.

Positive affect has rarely been measured directly enough. Resting and reduced vocalization dominate the literature. The 2025 cognitive-bias study is important precisely because it tested a different level of inference and produced a null result.

9.3 How to Read a New Study on This Topic

Four questions settle most of it. What was the comparison condition, and was it genuinely quiet? What was measured, and does the physiological measure depend on the behavior being scored? How long did the exposure last, and was habituation examined? And could the dogs move away from the sound?

A study answering all four well would be unusual in this field, which is a fair summary of where the topic stands (how a measure shapes the finding).

10.1 What Would Move the Field

Useful next studies would compare genuine quiet with defined acoustic stimuli in pet dogs over repeated sessions; independently manipulate background noise and masking sound; test acoustic properties factorially; include voluntary approach/avoidance; and combine behavior with physiologic and affect-sensitive outcomes.

The key question is no longer simply whether sound changes dogs. It is which sound, for which dog, in which context, through which mechanism, and whether the change reflects improved welfare rather than quieter behavior alone.

11. Conclusion

Auditory stimulation can change canine behavior, particularly in noisy kennel environments, but the evidence does not support a universal claim that music "calms dogs". Older shelter studies found more resting under some forms of music, and repeated exposure can alter or weaken those responses. Audiobooks can also change kennel behavior, showing that effects are not unique to music. More recent pet-dog work adds an important corrective: dogs did not clearly choose music over quiet in a free-choice test, dog-targeted relaxation music produced little evidence of reduced short-term stress, and classical music or audiobook did not shift a cognitive-bias measure of short-term affect. At the same time, familiarity may matter, acoustic properties can influence behavior, and varied sound can maintain effects better than a single repeated playlist in some kennel settings.

The practical conclusion is therefore modest. Use sound as an optional environmental tool, not as a treatment claim. Keep it at a tolerable level, allow distance or choice where possible, distinguish masking from emotional treatment, and evaluate the individual dog's behavior across comparable situations. A quieter dog may be less aroused; that alone does not tell us why or whether the dog feels better.

Key Insights (Takeaways)

• Some kennel studies show more resting and less activity under selected auditory conditions, but effects depend on stimulus, setting and repeated exposure.

• Habituation to a fixed playlist has been documented; varied genres may preserve behavioral effects across several days, but rotation is not a proven universal solution.

• Audiobooks can alter kennel behavior too, so any benefit cannot automatically be attributed to "music" as a special category.

• In a free-choice test with 90 pet dogs, music produced neither a clear overall preference nor aversion; prior familiarity influenced responses in a smaller follow-up sample.

• Recent pet-dog studies found little evidence that dog-specific or human relaxation music reduces short-term stress, and no short-term cognitive-bias advantage for classical music or audiobooks.

• Pitch and tempo have been tested experimentally, but no validated acoustic recipe for canine relaxation exists.

• Resting, reduced barking, cortisol and HRV are not interchangeable measures and do not by themselves identify positive emotional state.

• For clinical noise fear or separation problems, audio is a supporting environmental measure rather than a stand-alone treatment.

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