Picture No. 2: The Half Moon Bay home of classical pianist Lisa Spector on a mid-February day. She is playing classical works to an audience of several humans and about 11 dogs. Several minutes into the music, she noticed something about the dogs.
'Every single one of them was totally relaxed,' said Spector from her Half Moon Bay music school. 'They keeled over when the music was playing.'
 Lisa Spector performs for her yellow Labrador, Sanchez, at her Higgins Canyon home. She has teamed with experts to tailor music expressly for our canine companions. |
Spector, a Juilliard graduate, world-traveled concert pianist and music teacher, matches her love of music with her love of dogs. Her golden retriever, Byron, was a fixture in her studio from 1990 until he died in 2003. Now Sanchez, a yellow lab she raised for Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael and adopted when he didn't make it into final training, sprawls froglike on the carpet when not romping with Spector in the sport of canine agility they both love.
In time, she said, 'I started noticing the effect my piano playing was having on them.' The dogs often relax to the point of dozing off.
Her observations manifested in the book and accompanying CDs 'Music to Calm Your Canine,' 'Music for the Canine Household' and 'Music for Driving with Your Dog,' with classical selections played by Spector and other instrumentalists.
The book is available as of March 1 at Borders Books, Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods, some Peninsula pet stores, at Spector's school at 731 Main St. in Half Moon Bay, and over throughadogsear.com (Spector is approaching local outlets as well). 'Through a Dog's Ear' has excited considerable media attention. Spector, Leeds and Wagner appeared on the CBS Early Show on Feb. 22 in conversation with veterinary correspondent Debbye Turner.
The book examines the effects of the human soundscape on dogs. The CDs contain classical masterpieces adapted by Spector and Leeds for canine brains by slowing tempos, lowering pitches, and simplifying patterns. Both book and CDs present practical advice on creating and enhancing a healthy acoustical environment for dogs and people.
After all, Spector noted, dogs' ears are super-sensitive compared to our own. Sudden sounds familiar to us can put them on alert, activating their instinctive flight-or-fight response.
'My biggest goal for this is that it open more questions and more awareness,' Spector said. 'Our job is to provide (our dogs) with a healthy environment ... including a healthy sound environment.'
The package also offers big implications for humans.
'I think most people don't realize the stress created by sound,' said Spector. 'We're hoping that with the education we now have about secondhand smoke, we'll look at secondhand sound the same way. I see an opportunity to open a whole new area of conversation for animal guardians.'
The idea began when Spector attended a seminar Leeds gave in Marin County, where he lives, on psychoacoustics '” the study of the effects of sound and music on the human nervous system.
She tried out the principles on her students. At once she noticed that lethargic students perked up upon hearing sprightly music at higher pitches, while hyperactive students settled down with soft, low-pitched cello music playing in the background.
She took the idea of creating a CD that might have soothing effects on dogs, to Leeds. An educator, musician and author of the books 'Sonic Alchemy' (1997) and 'The Power of Sound' (2001), Leeds had produced classical recordings used in classrooms to boost learning and in therapeutic settings in clinics. Initially dubious, he consented to work with Spector on condition that their research undergo clinical testing.
'This opened the sandbox in which I'd been playing: the effect of music and sound on humans,' Leeds said by phone. 'This allowed me to look into what is the effect of music and sound not only on humans but other animals ... What I'm saying here is, we all live in a biosphere, and everything affects everything.'
Enter Wagner, who, after completing her veterinary residency, took additional studies in veterinary neurology and found it 'not different than humans.' Intrigued by a graduate student interested in music and neurology, she contacted Spector, and the building blocks for the book were in place.
'To me, one of the most important missions of the project is, to raise awareness of the sound environment our animals and we live in,' Wagner said by phone from Ohio.
From spring 2004 through summer 2005, the trio researched and tested four CDs. The first featured solo piano and the second, piano, cello and English horn, played slowly at 50 to 60 beats per minute. The third featured solo piano and a fourth a trio, slightly faster at 70 to 100 beats per minute. The first phase of testing was geared to calming dogs, the second to reducing anxiety. The CDs were tested at kennels, humane societies and Guide Dogs for the Blind.
That music went into a starter CD in the book and the companion CDs. 'Canine Household' is meant to reduce separation anxiety in dogs temporarily left at home by owners, and 'Driving' is meant to relax dogs in the car while keeping drivers alert.
The results astonished Spector, especially when the music quickly reached No. 10 and the book, 15, on Amazon charts. 'Selling before the product was even available, amazes me,' she said.
While the package is geared for canines, the three participants say it goes far beyond that.
'It's about the whole household,' said Wagner.
Leeds says that if he renamed the book, he would call it 'Canaries in the Coal Mines,' referring to the old practice of using canaries to test for invisible but deadly underground gases.
Citing documentation of behavioral issues in 10 percent of domestic dogs, he claimed the nervous dogs are a bellwether for humans.
'Animals are overwhelmed on the sensorial level, the auditory level,' he said. 'Their nervous systems have too much sensory data to process.
'Sensory overwhelm affects the immune system. If you overwhelm the nervous system on a chronic basis, it impacts the strength of the immune function. Is it any wonder? Are we poisoning our dogs and ourselves, essentially, with sense overwhelm?'
Spector plans to perform a concert 'for dogs and their human companions' at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 6, at her school. Space will be limited and dogs must leashed, and will be screened for aggressive behavior toward other dogs, before the music starts.
Admission to the concert is $22 if paid by April 4 or $25 at the door for 'two-leggeds' and $5 per dog.
For information, call Spector at 726-5119.
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