Move Over Yo Yo Ma and Josh Groban!

Just in time for the Westminster Dog Show and Grammys week, an unexpected music album debuts on Billboard’s Classical chart at #19: Through a Dog’s Ear music has gained an enduring track record of being true to its claim that it does indeed calm stressed out dogs. The album recently got a boost onto Billboard after being featured on Good Morning America, by VetStreet’s Dr. Marty Becker as one of his favorite products for de-stressing your pet.

Through a Dog’s Ear: Music to Calm Your Canine Companion, Volume 1, the first in a series of music clinically demonstrated to deeply relax dogs. This music was scientifically composed to help dogs who tremble under the bed at the first clap of thunder, who chew the new couch to pieces, and who regularly leave a large present on the Persian rug. High-anxiety dogs melt with this music.

According to psychoacoustic expert Joshua Leeds and award-winning concert pianist and Juilliard graduate Lisa Spector, just as music can reduce stress levels and anxiety in people, it can do the same with dogs. With the help of veterinary neurologist Dr. Susan Wagner, Leeds and Spector discovered that changing doggy brainwaves—and therefore calming, reducing anxiety, and helping to overcome behavioral issues in canine listeners—called for more than conventional Bach or Beethoven. Using psychoacoustic principles of tone, rhythm and pattern identification, Leeds and Spector handpicked, modified, and rearranged traditional classical pieces to create canine music of simplified sound. To get the desired results, they changed tempos, removed entire melodic sections, and used various arrangement and re-orchestration techniques to regulate the amount of auditory data.

Clinical trials of the music conducted in kennels, shelters, clinics, and in homes produced results that were…well, like music to any dog-lover’s ears. Seventy percent of dogs in kennels and 85% in households were noticeably calmer. When the music was played for dogs with specific anxiety disorders—such as separation anxiety, excitement with visitors, thunderstorm and fireworks trembling—over twice as many stressed-out behaviors were reduced compared to standard classical music.

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