TDK conference 2017

There are a large number of previous researches on the effects of listening to music for different species, including humans, dairy cattles, wild animals in captivity and even dogs at shelters. Dogs can be kept in kennels for a variety of reasons, such as laboratory purposes, housing work-dogs or in shelters. There are approximately 2-2,5 million dogs in Hungary, 5% of which are strays on the streets or in shelters. Physical and psychological problems are the main reasons for not getting adopted. The purpose of this research was to reduce stress, the main reason behind behavioral problems and thus make getting adopted easier.

We studied five mixed breed dogs for 20 days kept in the same kennel. They listened to 4 genres of music: classical, reggie, binaural and for control, white noise. The difference in the positions of the dogs (front, middle, back) were significant: during listening to classical music, they spent less time back, more time in the middle (p<0,05). Total time spent active (standing) was significantly less during exposure to music than the time spent passive (sitting, lying, hiding in the house) (p<0,01). We didn't find significant differences between music genres in eating, drinking, tail-wagging, jumping, scratching, barking, and interactions probably due to the small amount of subjects examined. During the first quiet control, the dogs were more stressed than during the music sessions.

We didn't find any significant differences between the genres, however the classical music had promising results, for example the dogs played and wagged their tails more than during any other music. They stood least and were at the back of the kennel most during the last quiet control which shows that playing music to sheltered animals can help adapting to excessive noise. Finding a type of music or acoustic smitulus, which is able to decrease the stress level and modify the behavior of dogs in a positive way may enhance not only animal welfare in shelters and laboratories but can increase the chance of getting adopted. Furthermore, playing music to captive animals can help adapting to excessive noise.