Description

 

Using the latest science on how dogs hear and react to sound, Leeds and Wagner bring you a treasury of practical tools for enhancing the lives of our best friends — including a started CD of music demonstrated in clinical trials to calm 70% of dogs in kennels or shelters and 85% in households.

Using the latest science on how dogs hear and react to sound, in Through a Dog’s Ear, Leeds and Wagner provide a treasury of fresh insight on the inner auditory life of our best friends, including:

• How to use sound as a tool to help alleviate separation anxiety, excitement with visitors, thunderstorm panic, and other behavior challenges

• For nervous dogs: tips and tricks for making any house or apartment more comfortable for canines

• Sensory confusion, over- and under-stimulation, the orienting response, and keys to understanding how our dogs hear the human world

• 45-minute starter CD of classical music psychoacoustically designed to soothe and relax dogs—and their human companions

If you’ve ever wondered what’s really happening when your furry friend perks up her ears and cocks her head—or when she hides under the bed—here is the first book to examine the powerful effect of the human soundscape on canines. Through a Dog’s Ear provides an indispensable source of cutting-edge research, heartwarming stories, and practical sound-based solutions to help your dog live a happier and healthier life.

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The Starter CD

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Joshua Leeds and Lisa Spector have created a series of clinically tested music CDs. These recordings are psychoacoustically designed to calm your canine and you — separately or together.

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On the Starter CD included with the book, you will find two 20-minute tracks, each with a different function.

 

Track One is designed to sooth; Track Two is designed to be uplifting.

 

Track One contains four selections from the Music to Calm Your Canine Companion series, Vols. 1–2. These compositions reduce anxiety, and in many cases, relax dogs into sleep. The instrumentation is simple — solo piano. The individual pieces have been selected and/or rearranged to gradually reduce the heart rate. This is accomplished naturally by progressively slowing rhythms and simplifying auditory data. Music to Calm Your Canine Companion is recommended for when your dog is left alone or anxiety is anticipated—such as separation, thunderstorms, fireworks, or guests arriving. (You will also find it to be extremely relaxing. Just don’t listen while operating heavy machinery.)

 

Track Two contains four selections from the Music for the Canine Household and Driving Edition – Music to Calm Your Dog in the Car series. Given that dogs and people live together, there are times when you want your animal to relax without falling asleep yourself. This uplifting, psychoacoustically designed music can be played for the enjoyment and relaxation of people while simultaneously providing a positive sound environment for dogs. The clinically tested selections from Music for the Canine Household are a little more stimulating than the Calm Your Canine CD, with quicker tempos and more complex arrangements and orchestration.

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The Compositions

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The selection, sequencing and/or re-arrangements of these compositions adhere to clinically tested psychoacoustic principles of resonance, entrainment, and pattern identification.

 

Track One: Music to Calm Your Canine Companion (23 minutes)

• Instrumentation: Piano

• Bach / Prelude in C, WTC Bk. I No. 1 (Vol. 1)

• Schumann / Foreign Lands from Kinderscenen (Vol. 2)

• Rachmaninoff / Vocalise (Vol. 1)

• Debussy / Reverie (Vol. 2)

 

Track Two: Music for the Canine Household (18 minutes)

• Instrumentation: Oboe, cello, piano

• Schubert / Serenade (Canine Household)

• Brahms / Intermezzo in A, Op. 116, #2 (Music for Driving)

• Mendelssohn / Cello Sonata in D (Canine Household)

• Bach / Prelude in D, WTC Bk. I No. 5 (Canine Household)

 

All music is performed by The Apollo Chamber Ensemble, featuring Lisa
Spector on piano.