Book Review: Through a Dog’s Ear

If you have been to a medium-small sized grooming salon during peak hours where 4 to 5 dogs are being attended to (clip, bath, and in the dryer) while another 2 dogs in an adjacent kennel waiting to be groomed, you’re likely to hear several types of sounds and the decibel levels could be easy between 55 to 80.

While we can only do so much to reduce the noise level produced by the clippers and dryers without over-compromising our productive, it’s almost impossible to reduce the noise made by our furry customers—barking, howling, and whining.

Most days, even during peak hours, we are able to keep the noise level within acceptable range as we try not to schedule more than two new or “special” dogs—who are unaccustomed to other machinery sounds, humans, and canines—together but, sometimes circumstances don’t always comply. And when this happens, situation can get a bit tense not just for my groomers’ concentration but even cause those well-mannered dogs to misbehave. If we just keep tolerating it and allow the noise level to escalate things can get very dangerous for every beings as many sharp, hot, and electrical objects are within close range.

Now you’re wondering why my grooming salon drama has anything to do with this book review. In every sense, it does. Just this last month, my co-partner and I decided to look for creative ways to help ease our furry customers’ anxiety problems.

Having read Joshua Leed’s The Power of Sound and listen to Sound Body, Sound Mind, I’m quite familiar with his work—topnotch sound quality—and we decided to get Through a Dog’s Ear with a starter CD to test it out on our four-legged customers. Lo and behold, it worked miraculously, within minutes all “problematic” dogs became less fidgety be it they were on the grooming table or in the kennel or in the dryer, or in the tub.

I’m not saying that the music completely eliminated all anxiety behaviors at a touch of turning the CD on. As the book clearly states…

This music is specifically designed to calm your dog and help abate behavioral issues.

I always knew certain classical music work wonders for dogs base on my personal experience. Whenever I need to rejuvenate from my hectic work schedule, I play the piano. Unquestionably, I would have my faithful audience lying near enjoying my piece and before long I would have Kiki and Zody in a sedated state. Having said and to paraphrase from the book, not all classical music is the same.

Dog needs simple sound spectrum that requires the least amount of neurological processing. The more complexity in the music, the more energy required to decipher it. Likewise, the simpler the sound, the greater the relaxation response.

In the starter CD, there are two tracks. The first track consists of four selections from Through a Dog’s Ear Vol. 1 & 2. While second track also consists of four selections from the Music for the Canine Household and Driving Edition. The total duration is about 44 minutes.

To better understand how to incorporate the music into working with your dog’s behavior issues, the book is a must-have before you buy the standalone CDs. Just on chapter 9 alone, Leeds lists the necessary guidelines to tackle common behavior issues like separation anxiety, aggression, thunderstorm anxiety, fireworks, excitement with visitors, house guest, boarding, driving with your dog, stressful time from the humans in the family. He also gives suggestions on how to use the music as part of integrative modality when dog/human on recovery from illness or surgery, and euthanasia and hospice.

Through a Dog’s Ear is a very well-written short literature, only 125-pages, comprehensible, engaging, and light (wish I could say the same for The Power of Sound).

To say we were impressed by result is an understatement. Our salon has always been known to use holistic approach to pamper (so as this blog’s tag line, if you haven’t notice ) our furry clients, so without much consideration we went ahead and ordered all 4 CDs series. We play vol. 1 & 2, household, and a few other simple classical music throughout the day or as often as my groomers could bear. Our pet taxi driver plays the driving edition CD when fetching our customers. So when they arrived at the salon, they would be calm and hopefully look forward to be groomed. In addition, all our furry customers are “treated” to 10 minutes of pure listening before they are taken to the grooming area.

It’s been three weeks since and it’s still working miraculously. We even have pet parents complimenting our choice of music play in the salon and how welcoming the ambiance feels. When told how the decision came about, that’s when they begin to piece together the change of their dog’s behavior when in our salon. Upon recommendation, most all of them bought the combo set. We’re planning to sell these CDs in our salon.

Give Through a Dog’s Ear a try even if your dog doesn’t have any anxiety issues. Who knows, you may even enjoy the music just as much as your dog does.