![]() ![]() Petflix entails dog-themed visuals, like walks through a forest, with a purple filter to engage the dogs further, paired of course with their favourite music. “Our vision for the future is to become the Netflix for pets – we want to be Petflix.” With an 87% success rate reported from owners, RelaxMyDog is now setting its sights higher. Despite the evidence of dogs’ preference for Bob Marley over Mahler, the show’s host (and owner of three dogs) Bill Turnbull says, “I leave the radio tuned to Classic FM for my dogs when I go out, and they seem to enjoy it. On 3 November, Classic FM will be broadcasting a one-off show for pets, featuring themed numbers such as John Barry’s Crazy Dog. Some of those dogs can be very enthusiastic and this record did the trick in calming them down.” McLaughlin is proud of the results: “We had a listening party where a bunch of my friends’ dogs came round to the house and it definitely works. “Dogs need to be entertained just like humans, and everybody likes a bit of reggae, don’t they?” McLaughlin even wrote lyrics from the perspective of dogs, resulting in love ballad lines such as: “I was barely holding on / But I knew you were the only one / From the moment I saw you.” “A lot of people I’m sure thought this project was barking mad but it made total sense to me,” McLaughlin says. Taking the research one step further, the SPCA last year collaborated with the producer John McLaughlin, best known for his work with Westlife, Blue, and 5ive, to create Paws, Play, Relax, a charitable record designed for dogs. They’ve certainly never complained Bill Turnbull, Classic FM presenter When a puppy is feeling stressed it will snuggle into its mother and use her heartbeat as relaxation, so this music mimics that.” I leave the radio tuned to Classic FM for my dogs when I go out, and they seem to enjoy it. The SPCA’s head of research, Gilly Mendes Ferreira, speculates this is because “those genres have a rhythm that is similar to the dogs’ own heart rate. Instead, reggae and soft rock came out as the best genres for reducing stress, barking and heart rates. The research found that while classical music had an initial calming effect on the dogs, after a few days they became bored. This finding is backed up by a 2017 study conducted by the Scottish SPCA and the University of Glasgow. One such piece of feedback was that dogs were responding well to reggae music, which has led to a new series of dog reggae. Rather than engaging in scientific research to influence their compositions, “the best research comes from actual users”, he says, who provide regular feedback through their YouTube channel’s 600,000 subscribers. It comprises, he says, of “a range of frequencies that the dogs can hear, combined with music that is designed to be relaxing to humans, since if the human is relaxed, that energy can be projected on to the dog also”. ![]() “Our content becomes an ingrained part of the lives of these animals.”Īhmed is coy when explaining the somewhat vague musical formula behind their success, though. ![]() With such an enthusiastic response to their music, and sister company RelaxM圜at founded in 2012, there is loyal fanbase: “We get messages from owners saying that their dog or cat used to listen to the music and now their pet has died they want it to be played at their funeral,” says Ahmed. ![]()
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