Stressed-out dogs want to hear Mozart, not ‘Harry Potter’: study

Mozart could be the trick to keeping barking dogs calm. 

Classical music can keep a pup composed when an owner leaves the house, and it can help reduce separation anxiety, according to new research from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. But not all recordings will help pups de-stress — turns out audiobooks fall flat and have no effect on a dog’s mental state, the study suggests. 

Researchers played Mozart’s “Sonata in D for Two Pianos” and the audiobook of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” to 82 dogs involved in the study to test if the music or narrative was more soothing. They also let dogs in the control group sit in silence when their owner left for a short time. Then they observed their behavior during each test trial. 

While dogs initially stayed put in the silence — defined in the study as lying down for more than 30 seconds — turns out a little concerto was more calming than story time, researchers found.

“Dogs exposed to classical music were significantly faster to lie down than animals in the audiobook condition and quicker to settle than animals in the audiobook and control conditions,” researchers noted.

While dogs who listened to the audiobook did perk up when they heard the speaker talking, researchers learned that just listening to its voice didn’t reduce short-term stress dogs had after being separated from their owners.

“Overall, findings point to only a moderately calming effect of classical music, and no apparent welfare benefits of an audiobook, on dogs separated from their owners,” the paper explained.  

“The research points to auditory stimulation having little value to dogs in situations of short-term acute stress,” researchers noted. 

Anxious pups are an ongoing behavioral issue for pet owners. Separate findings from researchers at Seoul National University in South Korea in 2016 found that separation anxiety in dogs makes up for 10% to 20% of behavioral cases, and up to 50% in older dogs.