Does Music Affect Animal Behaviour?

As many of us will likely have experienced before, music can have a big impact on our mood. Whether it is a sombre film soundtrack that perfectly pulls on our heartstrings or the catchy sounds of the Betway online casino that put us in the mood to gamble, music can often directly shape our emotional state. Although we know music can affect our mood in places like the cinema or the online casino, we can’t help but wonder if the same is true for other animals we share the planet with?

Well, according to a Betway article on the great ‘Dog Relaxation Experiment’, music can just as easily impact the emotional states and behaviour animals of our furry friends as it can us.

Can music affect animals’ emotions?

As anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to have a cat or a dog in their life knows, our furry companions experience a wide range of emotional states. This includes everything from excitement and contentedness to sadness, shame and a deep sense of love.

Similarly, if you have ever had a dog or a cat, you will also know that sounds can trigger these emotions. This might be the sound of your voice calling out their name when you arrive home after a long day at work or it could be the sound their food makes as it hits their feeding bowl. In all of these examples, there is a clear connection between an audible sound and changes in their emotional state.

But what about music? Will the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra put them in a calm state or will blasting heavy metal make them more aggressive, in the same way it can for human behaviour?

In an experiment run by the clever folks over at Betway, this connection was confirmed. To do this, they conducted an experiment where dogs were fitted with a fitness tracker to monitor how our furry friends responded to different genres of music.

Betway insiders looked at the dogs’ anxiety levels, rest times and sleep quality after listening to different music genres with their owners by their side. Fitness trackers were used to measure how anxious these dogs felt after listening to the different musical genres for an hour. But what exactly did the results show?

Music genres and animal behaviour: what does the data show?

In the experiment conducted by Betway Insiders, a total of six musical genres were used. This included pop music, classical, hip-hop, jazz, heavy metal and folk. The dog’s responses were tracked across total rest time, the quality of their sleep and their overall anxiety levels.

Out of the six genres tracked, folk music came out on top for highest sleep time, overall sleep quality and lowest anxiety levels. Folk music helped dogs to sleep for a total of 46 minutes out of the hour they were tracked. This was followed by jazz music – which helped them get 42 minutes of rest – and pop music, which recorded a high of 41 minutes of rest on average.

Much like in humans, heavy metal music caused the dogs tracked to be the least restful, which might mirror your own listening experiences!

Folk music also helped the dogs to get the best quality of sleep, with the dogs listening to this genre recording a sleep quality average of 88%.

Interestingly, although folk music had the best impact in terms of sleep quality and total rest time, it was not necessarily the best for anxiety. Of the dogs surveyed, jazz music made them the least anxious, with anxiety levels of 66/290 recorded. This is compared to the 87/290 we would expect dogs to experience on a normal night at home with no music.

Animals and music: what else do we know?

Although every experiment will have its limitation, this study broadly aligns with what we know about the relationship of the animal world with music.

Academic research has confirmed that animals reliably respond to different music stimuli. And while they might not necessarily respond to these stimuli in exactly the same way that humans do, the existence of a response is quite clear.

We should also note that the responses animals have to music will depend on two important variables: the type of animal and the type of music.

For example, although cats and dogs both respond to musical stimuli, cats seem more responsive in certain respects. However, the response you get will depend on whether the music is composed and recorded in a tempo and frequency range that their hearing systems can pick up. These tempos and frequencies will vary across different genres, which explains why we see such different responses across genres such as folk and heavy metal.