Music has been used for a long time by dog owners to calm their dogs by blocking out street noise or unexpected loud sounds such as thunder. Music is one of the fundamental forms of human entertainment, and it would be common today to have a music streaming service such as Spotify, Pandora, or Apple Music, playing somewhere in the house.
A quick search on these music streaming services for playlists for pets or dogs, will retrieve a variety of results generally created and curated by dog owners. The playlists will be the music they enjoy with their pets or for specific purposes like masking storms. In January when we come across an announcement for Spotify for Pets in Australia, we had to check it out.
First Impressions
It is pretty easy to get started on Spotify to create a pet playlist. The process starts at the link pets.byspotify.com/au (or substitute your two-letter country code if you are not in Australia eg UK). The interface is fun and friendly and the process to get a customised playlist for our dogs was very straightforward.
The FAQs describes a pet playlist as " An algorithmically created playlist based on your listening habits and your pet's attributes so it's music you can both enjoy"
The Testing
From our PC, we went to the Australian version of the site and selected dogs of course for the test. The process leads you through several questions about your dog where you customise on a sliding scale your dog's energy levels, friendliness and curiosity.
Finally, you get to upload a photo of your dog and name your playlist.
The tool then works its magic, matching your dog's profile with your Spotify profile to create a customised playlist for you both to enjoy.
The playlist appears in your library of playlists in your Spotify account so you have it to download or stream whenever you like.
Summary
Pros
- Easy to get started and create a playlist customised for you and your pet
- A bit of fun!
Cons
- You need a Spotify account to get started
Final Verdict - it is Dog Approved 😊
This is a bit of fun. I cannot say that our dogs enjoyed this more than other playlists and music we play through the house, but hey, we have a special playlist in our Spotify library customised for us!
Add your playlist and let us know how your dog reacted on the associated story on our Facebook page.