Spotify introduces personalised playlists for pets along with ‘My Dog’s Favourite Podcast’

15 January 2020 - Press release

• 74% of UK owners play music for their pets and 8 in 10 believe their pets like music
• Nearly three quarters of UK owners claim audio sound helps soothe and calm their pets
• Pet owners think music can help relieve pets’ stress, boost their happiness and keep them company

Pets and their humans — it’s a relationship bonded in a mutual love of snuggles, walkies, selfies and...music? While audio for pets isn’t an exact science, a new study from Spotify shows pet owners believe there is a true connection between their beloved animals, music and the spoken word.

Because of this, Spotify is making it even easier to share your favourite music and audio with your pets via Pet Playlists for music, alongside ‘My Dog’s Favourite Podcast’. 

Available today, Pet Playlists is a new experience where Spotify users can get an algorithmically curated playlist based on their tastes and their pet’s character attributes. Each Pet Playlist includes approximately 30 tracks based on the listener’s preferences that their pet is more likely to enjoy given it’s created with their personality and characteristics in mind. For example, an energetic dog might get a playlist with tracks that are upbeat while a shy cat might get something with slower tempos.

And with new research from Spotify revealing that nearly three quarters of UK pet owners claim that audio sound helps to soothe and calm their pets at home, the streaming platform has also created an exclusive new podcast entitled ‘My Dog’s Favourite Podcast,’ to keep your dog company when they’re home alone. It has been created in partnership with animal experts and features a mix of soothing music, dog-directed speech and original sound design to provide comfort  and help alleviate stress for dogs who are temporarily home alone.

With Spotify’s research going on to reveal that over half of UK dog owners (53%) leave their dogs at home by themselves between 1 and 5 hours due to work and other commitments, ‘My Dog’s Favourite Podcast’ is split into two five hour blocks, for the one in nine UK pet owners who are looking for ways to help keep their pets relaxed when they’re away from home.

Produced by award-winning podcast production company Listen Entertainment, the first hour of each block has dog-directed praise, stories, affirmation messages and reassurance, narrated by actors Ralph Ineson (Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Goodnight Sweetheart, The Office) and Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife, Baptiste, Informer, The Last Post), to help the dog relax as the owner leaves the house. Underpinning this is 10 hours of relaxing original music produced by a team led by award-winning composer Daniel Knight (Best Pop and Best Ambient/Minimalist track, Production Music Awards). Original ambient sounds are also included to further relax the listening canine, such as the sounds of parks, light rain, and wind rustling in trees.

 

Alex Benjamin, Pet Psychologist and lecturer at York University, whose 2008 research study ‘Who’s A Good Boy’ explored the role of human voices in stimulating animal behaviour, commented:

“Dogs are extremely social animals but, in order to fit in with our busy lives, may spend some time by themselves during the day. “My Dog’s Favourite Podcast” is a bespoke podcast that is designed to encourage your dog to relax through calming gentle praise and story-like speech accompanied by original music and gentle ambient sounds designed to help mask startling sounds of the outside world such as traffic, car doors slamming or the bins being emptied, for example. I hope that the podcast becomes a fun and useful resource for owners to explore with their dogs while they are at home together as well as when their dog is alone for short periods.”

Neil Evans, Pet Physiologist and Professor at University of Glasgow, who also consulted on the project, added: “While there is a lot of scientific research that has shown that short periods of music can make dogs more relaxed we have shown that providing dogs with varied auditory enrichment can be used to reduce stress and anxiety over longer periods of time.  When dogs have appropriate auditory enrichment they may bark less, lie down and sleep more and their body’s are in a more relaxed physiological state. We worked with the Spotify team on the development of My Dog’s Favourite Podcast, advising on the types of music, sounds and speech to be included based on the ability of auditory enrichment to benefit dog welfare.”

A few other interesting pets/owners facts that have been uncovered in Spotify’s study of UK pet owners:

• The most popular sounds reported by owners to soothe pets are family conversations (39%), noise from your favourite TV programmes (36%) and music (34%);
• More than 7 in 10 (76%) owners believe that their pets love listening to music and 4 in 10 (42%) even say they have a favourite type of music, with the top genres for animals revealed as pop (11%), classical (10%), country (3%) and rock (3%);
• 1 in 4 pet owners already play music for their pets to listen to as company while they are away from home;
• A quarter (26%) of pet owners have witnessed their pets dancing to music;
• As podcast listening continues to grow in popularity – nearly doubling on Spotify since the beginning of 2019 – one in 10 owners said that their pets enjoy listening along to their favourite shows with them;
• 60% have witnessed their dogs taking notice of famous voices, with the voices that dogs love to listen to the most include: David Attenborough, Holly Willoughby, The Queen and Stephen Fry.

Olga Puzanova, Head of Consumer Marketing, UK and Ireland says: “Humans love music for so many reasons, including the comfort and companionship it can provide when you need it most - and now we know that pet-owners appreciate their pets’ music fandom. Spotify’s research shows that 74% of pet owners in the UK play music for their pets, 76% believe their pets like music and most pet owners think music can help pets relieve stress, boost their happiness and keep them company.”

For the launch the streaming service has joined forces with the RSPCA to further support the wellbeing of dogs in the UK. RSPCA recently launched their#DogKind campaign which aims to help dog owners better understand dog behaviour and make your dog the happiest pooch on the block.

Dr Samantha Gaines, RSPCA dog welfare expert says: “Like Spotify, our own surveys of dog owners have shown that many dogs are routinely left by themselves on a daily basis and sadly many dogs find this difficult. In 2019, we launched our #Dogkind campaign which aimed to help owners better understand their dog’s behaviour and how best to treat their dog if they struggle alone. While nothing can ever replace the company and presence of a dog’s two-legged friend, research is increasingly showing the effect of music on dog behaviour. The type of music a dog listens to is important and research has shown that some music can help dogs relax while other types may have a less beneficial effect so it’s really great Spotify have curated and produced music with dogs in mind.  This is why we are supporting Spotify’s My Dog’s Favourite Podcast which is specifically designed to help dogs relax and be calm when their owner is away.”

Discover the Pet Playlists tool HERE and ‘My Dog’s Favourite Podcast’ HERE.

Supporting imagery and video assets can be downloaded HERE.

To find out more information about RSCPA’s #DogKind campaign visitrspca.org.uk/dogkind.