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Home » Archive » 2020 » Veterinary Session

Veterinary session

Effect of sound and music upon the behaviour of shelter dogs
Szabó Fanni - year 6
University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Department Animal Breeding, Nutrition and Laboratory Animal Science
Supervisors: Dr. Gabriella Korsós, Dr. Sándor György Fekete

Abstract:

This thesis is about the effect of different sounds upon dogs’ behavior at the governmental dog pound of the 23/A Illatos Street, Budapest. The general noises of a dog pound by itself can cause stress, but the level of stress can be different in each individual. This influences the dogs attitude, it can cause bad habits and abnormal behavior. The played recordings decrease the external noise by themselves. Besides some type of music have relaxing effect on the individuals, and it has an environmental enrichment effect too.

During the tests five shelter dogs were examined by video recording. The animals were listening to different sounds and music for the same amount of time. The experiment took nineteen days. A mixture of sounds and music was used for acclimatization, while the natural local environment and white noise were used as control. We collected our data from the videos with a special behavior analyser software (Noldus - The Observer XT 14). We studied the behavior of the dogs in the kennel, such as the position of their body, the time of standing, sitting, lying down, playing, tailwagging, the time of eating and drinking, and lastly the comfort motions.

Our results showed that the dogs spent the most time in the front part of the kennel while listening to whitenoise and reggae. and they also spent the most time lying while listening to reggae. Also, they spent the most time playing with each other while listening to the binaural music. The more time spent in the front part of the kennel can increase the chance of adoption. It is also advantageous if the dogs spend more time in calm posture, like sitting or lying down.

Music is easy to access and it can be used to treat animals in the everyday life. Many dogs spend part of their life in a kennel or even all of it. It is common in shelters, but work dogs and laboratory dogs can also be placed in an environment like that, and sometimes it can happen for dogs that are kept in a house. Music can increase the quality of their life, decrease their stress levels, which are benefits of health care aspects. Beside of that, it can decrease the formation of bad habits, it can increase the chance of adoption in shelters and dog pounds, and it can lower the odds for them to return back to the shelter.



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