Buzz
According to a study, 71% of pet owners play music for their pets when they’re not home. walik/Getty ImagesDo you believe your dog enjoys jamming to Led Zeppelin? Or that your cat feels less lonely with the Beatles playing? Maybe you play music to soothe your pets while you’re at work or to drown out the mail carrier’s arrival, hoping your dog won’t bark endlessly.
If you play music for your pets, you’re part of the 71% of pet owners who do the same, as reported by Spotify. Recognizing this trend, Spotify has introduced specially curated playlists for pets.
Yes, it’s true. You can head to the Spotify for Pets page and select your pet’s species: dog, cat, hamster, bird, or even iguana. Unfortunately, snake enthusiasts, there’s no playlist for reptiles, tarantulas, or goldfish. Spotify explains that these creatures lack ears. However, one could argue for a bass-heavy playlist that lets them vibe through tank vibrations. Agree?
After selecting your pet, you’ll answer a few questions about their personality: Are they playful or sleepy? Friendly or shy? Then, Spotify’s unique algorithm crafts a playlist your furry (or scaly) companion is bound to adore.
Purrfect Pitch
The algorithm isn’t entirely mysterious. Spotify surveyed 5,000 pet owners who also stream music. From this, we learned that 69% of pet owners sing to their pets, leaving the other 31% as, well, less fun-loving individuals. The survey also revealed that pet owners believe music reduces their pets’ stress and that their pets share their musical tastes.
Spotify also infused art and science into its algorithm. David Teie, a cellist who played with the National Symphony Orchestra for two decades, created two albums titled Music for Cats. His track "Potato's Song," featuring calming purrs, rhythmic suckling sounds, and strings, has garnered nearly 85,000 views on YouTube. Teie also curated Spotify’s Mellow Meowsic playlist.
To human ears, Teie’s music might seem unusual. However, Charles Snowdon, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tested Teie’s compositions. Alongside his student Megan Savage, Snowdon visited 47 cats in their homes, playing two of Teie’s pieces and two classical human songs. The cats responded more positively to the cat-specific music, displaying behaviors like purring and moving closer to the speaker.
Snowdon explained that animals and humans perceive different sound frequencies, meaning some of the music we play for pets doesn’t resonate with them. In fact, some of our favorite tunes might not even sound like music to animals—they could just come across as noise or agitation.
Despite this, Spotify forged ahead, blending this scientific insight with survey data and users’ personal playlists to create music both pets and owners might enjoy. That is, if the animals can actually hear it.
Snowdon and Teie initially tested species-specific music on cotton-top tamarin monkeys at the University of Wisconsin’s psychology department. Snowdon recorded distress calls during vet visits and calming chirps. Teie used these to compose songs, which were then played for the monkeys. Like the cats in the later study, the tamarins preferred the soothing songs and were unsettled by the distressing ones. Classical control songs were largely ignored.
