Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Let's get to it. Welcome to our show this week. This week we're going to have some fun because my guest today Lisa Specter, has a degree from Juilliard. For those of you who don't know, that's like big league music. My aunt actually went to Juilliard. And for over 15 years, Lisa has been recording research based classical music to ease canine anxiety. And I didn't know she and I were talking before we went live. And I didn't realize that she actually started a company that made music discs that I sold in my veterinary clinics from when they first came out back in 2008. So very, very cool. So I've known about music therapy for animals for a long time didn't realize this was the person behind that. So how cool! In 2017, NPR called her the Pet Calming Maestro. She's the founder of My Zen Pet. And the Dog Gone Calm Club. Lisa, thanks for being a guest today. I'm kind of excited about this.
Lisa Spector 1:10
It is such an honor to be here. Dr. Judy has been such a big fan of yours for so many years. So it's great to be speaking with you.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:18
Well, I was a fan of yours. I just didn't know it. I didn't know it was you. So really cool stuff. So first of all, your Juilliard trained. So piano, other instruments, classical music?
Lisa Spector 1:30
Just piano just classical for people in those days. Little did I know my Juilliard degree was gonna go to the dogs later on in life.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:40
Which, yeah, so how did that happen? Like, how does somebody go from being a classical pianist? For human concerts? Whatever you were doing recording? I don't know. But how do you go from that to I think I'll play the piano for the dog.
Lisa Spector 1:55
Well, sometimes I have found in life, the best things happen seemingly by accident at the time, and you look back, and they look like divine intervention. And this is one of those things. So 20 years ago, 2003, I owned a music school. And that was what I was doing professionally and all ages. And I also I've always loved dogs, and I was a volunteer puppy raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind. So I had a rambunctious four month old puppy, Sanchez, and I brought him to my music school, I joke that he got most of my business. Because everyone loved him so much. And I was studying actually, for the children. I had a group of four year olds and I was like, they're so wild. When they come in, I need to get them a focus, how do I get them to calm down and get focused? So I started studying different prescriptions of music for people that had been used in neurodevelopmental centers and with autistic children and to get some handle on my four year olds. And I found that the music I discovered works on the four year olds, it was fabulous. But I looked over at my rambunctious four month old guide dog puppy, and he was snoozing in no time was like, great it works with children. I'm really onto something. And I started wondering, has this ever been done? I've always I've had dogs all my life. They've always gravitated to the piano. And that's what sparked my interest. And then I looked in, I formed a partnership with a sound researcher and a veterinary neurologist who ran a research study. And that's how it all started.
Dr. Judy Morgan 3:28
Wow. And you know, everybody I talked to who is in the holistic pet space, every single one of them started their company or is doing what they're doing kind of like that. It was like this fortuitous thing that happened, and a light bulb goes on. And you go, wow, I should do something with this, which is so incredibly cool. And I will say my mother lives with us. And she's 86. And she has played the piano, literally her whole life. And she's a very talented musician, played the clarinet, dancer, like, all the arts stuff that not me. And so she plays the piano every single day.
Lisa Spector 4:14
So you get to hear her every day.
Dr. Judy Morgan 4:17
I love it. Like if I walk in, she's like, Oh, I'm sorry, I don't want to bother... Are you kidding? You could play that piano eight hours a day, and I would just be so happy. And what happens is one of our cats actually lives on the windowsill over my mom's piano. That's just her chosen spot. And so my mom plays and the cat sits on the bench right next to her. And then all the dogs if they're going crazy, no matter what they're doing, they all gravitate and if you look over, there's dogs sleeping all around her piano bench. And she plays a lot of hymns and like the sound of music, like show tunes and that kind of stuff, but it's all fairly mellow. And so she ends up with all these animals surrounding her and then I'm usually in some other Part of the house just singing in the background where no one can hear me. So, but it is very true that, you know, our house becomes very zen. So I love that you named this Zen Pet. Our house becomes very zen when my mom is playing the piano. And you know, she'll say, I don't want to bother you while you're working. You know, if I'm writing or doing I'm like, Are you kidding? That's like the best background music. It absolutely is therapy. So what? And I know you've you've got a lot of research behind this. So from an sciency, or science point of view, what are some of the physiological and psychological benefits to the dog or, and we'll talk about cats a little later. But to the nervous system for these animals, like do we actually you said you worked with a neurologist to actually formulate this? Did they look at like brainwave patterns or you know, what was going on, or cortisol levels or blood pressure, heart rate, like any of that kind of stuff to see what kind of changes we see?
Lisa Spector 6:08
So keep in mind, this was way back. The research was done in 2005. And I want to first talk about an original research study. When I first saw this light bulb went off, I wanted to see what else had been done. And in 2001 I believe, that was a very first research study by Dr. Deborah wells, an Irish behaviorist, and she tested music in the shelter environment, testing, classical music, human conversation, heavy metal, pop music, and then a control group of no music. And she found that classical music was conducive to calming the dogs in the shelter environment, getting them to limit and reduce and stop their barking and also just settled and laid down. Now, classical music here's the challenge. But there's been a lot of progress since then, and good for her. She started this and she her goal is to have more of this. Classical music is an enormously broad term. Most people think classical music is all the same. Classical music is not all the same. It could be a single instrument that has low frequencies that calm the canine nervous system. It could be a single instrument like flute or violin that's high frequencies that charge the canine nervous system. It could be a 140 piece orchestra, it could be Tchaikovsky, the 1812 Overture with cannons coming out of the stereo. That would not calm your dog. It is considered classical. So when we did this research study in 2005, with Susan Dr. Susan Wagner, we tested first in the shelter environment four kinds of classical music, meaning solo piano ensemble, different tempos and varying things. And then we took a smaller study after that had been done with music with the kind of classical music that was most conducive to calming the dogs in the shelter, and then took that into the home environment, particularly and specifically before July 4, because so many dogs are so afraid of the fireworks and tested that. it was not there was no cortisol test. It was behavior testing. So it was do the dogs stop barking? Do they stop pacing? Do they lay down? And it was the results were so astoundingly positive that, you know, Susan said to us, like, people are gonna think we're lying, because it was just so profound. But it didn't surprise me. I've had dogs my whole life and I know what they gravitated towards. And since then, there have been a multitude, maybe a dozen studies since then. So I'm thrilled that there's been more progress and the music I record now is actually slightly different than the music I recorded that you played, you know, in your when you had your vet clinics, because theirs was based on newer research and it's similar, but there are some differences based on newer research.
Dr. Judy Morgan 8:55
That is so cool. So have you found differences between different breeds or ages or sizes of dogs like ours? I me personally, I kind of think of small dogs as maybe being a little more high strung than big dogs, but that's not always the case. But have you found differences in size, breed, age, as far as or do they all kind of gravitate toward this?
Lisa Spector 9:22
Somewhat so yes and no. So I'm going to answer this a little differently than I used to answer this. So dogs that are known to be more sensitive, I think of border collies, you know, those are medium to larger dogs. So many of them are, you know, sound sensitive. I used to say that the more sound sensitive and I want to talk about the difference between sound sensitive and sound phobic, but the dogs that are more sound sensitive. The music I think happens faster, the results of the calming behavior have been faster. And I'm now starting to think it's just more obvious because there people are aware that their border collie was sound phobic. So I this is my own terminology. I describe sound if you have a sound phobic dog, you know it, your dog your fireworks, thunderstorms, they're hiding in the bathtub. They're cowering, they're shaking their you know, they escaped the backyard.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:19
The toaster, the microwave. Oven timer.
Lisa Spector 10:22
Exactly. If you have a sound sensitive dog, they might just be tense, their body might tense up, their ears alert, their tail goes up, you know, there's more subtle signs. So observing my sister's rest in peace dog I when I visited she didn't have it was her first dog as an adult she had no idea like this dog was very sound sensitive. And because the signs were so subtle, so I think there's a difference. So it's not a difference in necessarily breed, or definitely not in size. But some breeds are just known to be more sound sensitive, but I have seen labs and they are not known to be sensitive. I've seen some who are very sound phobic, so it just and retrievers... it just really depends.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:11
Yeah, yeah, I love people who breed hunting dogs, and then they get the dog who's scared to death of the sound. that didn't work out. Which, you know, makes me wonder because we put little headphones on the dog with classical music when they're out in the field hunting would that calm them. I don't know.
Lisa Spector 11:28
Yeah, I believe me. I've lost sleep over that. Like how do we get headsets on dogs? Or we get earbuds? Yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:35
Alright Doggy ear buds? There's your next invention. All right. So What effects do you think that noise has on dog health overall, particularly for these phobic or sensitive dogs?
Lisa Spector 11:55
This is probably my favorite topic. Because we I want to empower pet parents to know that there's a lot that you can do. So there are a lot of sounds in your household under your control that you may not be aware of. Dogs' Hertz range is twice as high as ours, cats is twice as high as dogs. So that means that in in layman's terms, that means that they hear further away, and they also hear higher frequencies.
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:34
The silent dog whistles, we can't hear them, but they can because of the frequency.
Lisa Spector 12:37
And if you ever, like someone says, Oh, I'm gonna listen to this, get this music for my dog. I can't hear it because it's too high frequency. But he can. You don't. That's not what you want. You want lower frequencies and I want to come back to that. But in terms of the household sounds, I invite everyone to take a sound survey. What just sit on your sofa, dog in lap it's fine. And just listen, take a notebook and write down the sounds you're hearing inside and outside. car sounds, motorcycle, inside the beeps, the Bluetooth buzzing which I always have off unless I'm using it. Fluorescent lights. Pings like all of these appliances, they drive me nuts that they they don't need an alert that the dishwasher is done like I'm fine. So whatever you possibly can diminish or delete those signs, newer appliances, you often can shut off the buzzing of the dryer, I have seen dogs and people have come to me and said My dog is terrified of going in the garage. I was like well what happened in the garage, oh the washing machine and the dryer are in the garage and the dog was walking by the dryer and the clothes were drying, the buzz went off and the dog is all of a sudden thinks. The garage is a scary place. So it's really take control of you can't control everything. You can't control the fireworks that are coming in July 4. Or the thunderstorms. But you can control a lot of things in your environment. So just to be aware of things so for example, when I had two dogs. Sanchez did not make it as a career as a guide dog so he actually was career changed and got to be my dog for 14 years. And so when I had Sanchez and my current dog Gina, I remember getting like you know, there's electric water kettles, so boils water for tea, and it just pings is a little tiny thing at the end and the first day I got it like they're in their dog beds and they're they're not sound sensitive dogs but their ears go up and they're less than they're trying to find out dogs are always trying to find out. Do I need to safeguard this house? Do I need to be on alert? Am I safe so they're trying to determine that. So then the next day the water kettle goes off and they don't sit up or jump up but their ears still go up. the third day They nothing, they're good, they know it's a safe sound. So they're always trying to orient so really become aware of the sounds and see what you can to diminish or delete them.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:09
Absolutely. And I have a story to tell about that when we come back so we're going to take a break, but when we come back from our break, Lisa is actually going to play some music that our dogs like, so stay tuned, this might be a good time to bring your dog into the room and see how they react to the music so stay tuned.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT 15:29
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Dr. Judy Morgan 16:01
and we're back and Lisa is going to give us a short concert. I'm really excited and I've got my puppy next actually there's about four dogs in this room and right now they're all sleeping so I expect they'll stay sleeping but let's see what happens. It's all you.
Dr. Judy Morgan 18:41
Wow, so I'm going to be very zen now for the rest of the afternoon. I feel sorry for the people that I have to interview later today because I am just going to sleep my way through that. That is very relaxing. And I will say two of the dogs just continued to snooze and one of them about 45 seconds or a minute in, she kind of lifted her head, did a big stretch and then just went ahhh and sunk. That's what happens. So amazing. Yeah, that's what happens and and I love it. So I mean, do they do they come become desensitized to it? Like if you let's say you're going to work and you have a dog with separation anxiety and you say well, I'm gonna turn the music on for the dog. You know, as I'm getting ready to leave and you know that anxiety is starting to build. If you left it playing all day, does it do they stay calm with it all day or at some point would they just tune it out?
Lisa Spector 19:38
So in the 20 years I've been doing this I have heard 1000s of stories and I've never found ones that have become de sensitives I've heard the opposite. I've heard dogs, stories of dogs barking for the people to turn on the music. I have heard now there is a time and a place to play this. I would not recommend playing it 24/7 So So such as in so my my recordings are playing in over 1500 shelters worldwide. And when I used to manage the shelter project for Through a Dog's Ear, I would get calls from behaviorist and shelter managers and you know, how often do I play the music, how loud and so forth. You want to play the music whenever there's a possibility of a time of a new stimulus coming into their environment. So you leaving is a new stimulus. But don't play it right before you're leaving, because then your dog builds a conditioned response. Oh my god, it's time to panic, my person is leaving the music's coming on. You want to get into a ritual, I suggest people play it with their dogs. This music is for both ends of the leash and I'll tell you why in a second. And it is really good to practice a ritual so you're listening with your dog and then your dog gives an association of all is good with the world my person is with me I can chill. And when you leave, don't play it right when you're leaving and play it mix up the pattern sometimes an hour before sometimes in half an hour mix up your patterns just like you mix up everything else. And so I have now never found a dog that gets so conditioned. But I but I also don't recommend it 24/7 You want times of silence so in the shelter I said play it at night. It was just CDs in those days. So play the CD once and have it shut off. Nothing new is coming in at nighttime. There's no people, there's no feeding time. But at feeding time, you know with a frenzy you know, start the music before that. They're not going to sleep during the feeding time. But they're just gonna get a little more zen.
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:42
Oh, man. Okay, now I gotta I gotta try this at feeding time. I only have four dogs. But yeah, it's amazing how much noise and jumping up and down. they're so excited about their food, which I get. But man Oh, man, if I could zen out feeding times.
Lisa Spector 21:57
They're not gonna zen out but they're just gonna take off that little bit.
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:00
But if I can take a little bit of edge. Yeah, and they do. Yeah. And they do love it. Maybe I'll just get my mom to play the piano.
Lisa Spector 22:10
I would like to talk about how those lower frequencies if you notice I was playing with my left hand only
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:14
I know the left hand only I was very impressed. Do you compose your own music?
Lisa Spector 22:20
I don't compose. But I did arrange that. So there's several reasons I was playing for left hand only it started with seven years ago I broke I fell and I broke my hand. My right hand so severely that I was in a cast and I couldn't play for so I actually was told I would never play piano again with two hands. I'm playing full concerts Rachmaninoff Chopin list with two hands so it's all good. But when my hand was in a cast, I rearranged this for left hand only. So this is a movement from Vivaldi. It's the Largo from Four Seasons, so four seasons is violin, it's high frequency that would charge your dog's nervous system. So piano alone helps. But my left hand is playing lower frequencies. So I rearranged this for left hand only. So if you think about if your listeners think about how you intuitively use your voice with your dog, if you're saying good night, good girl and you, you know it's calming time, you're gonna just instinctually drop to a lower voice and go into what I call in music terms, long legato speak, your mother will understand this. If your dog is about to cross the street and you see a car coming. The last thing you want to do is say, Fido here, you're gonna go into high frequency pitch. Gina is my dog is here. I'm not going to do it. But you're gonna go into high frequency short, staccato, I don't hear, you know, in high pitch to get alert. So that's why I take out those staccato short sections. Everything is long, musical lines. And I don't play all left hand anymore. But I always specialize in bringing out the bass because it really does have an effect on our dogs.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:03
Yeah, absolutely. So you were talking about household noises. About a year, year and a half ago, my husband we live back on a long lane on a farm. So we can't see cars that are up on the road. And so my husband bought this driveway alarm that has two cameras. And as cars go by it, it beep, you know, and then 10 seconds later when the car gets to the second one, beep. And so our puppy, who's now a little over a year and a half. So you know he was 6,7,8 months old. His behavior got so bad. And so he started alerting and being like in a frenzy. And then so he'd hear this and he would instantly start racing around the house barking at the top of his lungs, is crazy. And that went from that to when the person would come in the house because he was already in such a hyper state, then he would attack the person coming in, like I have to, you know, I have to protect you from this, whatever just set off this alarm system. And so it's been unplugged now I actually took the dog to puppy training classes and actually figured out a lot of where his anxiety and crazy and aggression. He's a little 10 pound dog that you just like I'm going to take everybody out. And we figured out where it was from like, because when that alarm would go off, we would also be instantly at alert looking out the window, run to the window and look out and see who's coming. Who's coming. You know, is this friend or foe? And so it is it is so true, like bad behaviors in our pets can start with something that we don't even associate.
Lisa Spector 25:44
even know where it comes from the washing machine, the dryer
Dr. Judy Morgan 25:47
Yeah, once we figured out where it like he doesn't care about the dishwasher, but he doesn't care about the dryer but like none of that stuff sets him off the oven and you're right like now I'm like I'm gonna go home and silence everything. It is amazing how many things beep and buzz all day and we don't even pay attention to it. But that driveway buzzer was loud and it totally changed his behavior not for the better and it just escalated into I really thought like I'm gonna have to send this dog back to the breeder I cannot deal with this Thank God we found a really good trainer and I got to understand where it's the trainer didn't figure out it came from the driveway noise but just by putting everything together. And so it's so and before we only have a couple minutes left I can't believe this one so fast. I want to talk about music for cats because cats are totally different so what are the frequencies and what like I've heard cat music it's so
Lisa Spector 26:38
when I was creating music for cats it was based on research by Dr. Tony Buffington I think in Ohio and just in generality you know dogs someone comes to the door like this is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me you know and cats, someone comes to the door oh my god I need to go hide under my bed because they don't like anything that's not predictable at all. So you know dogs like their patterns but cats like you know there's total 100% consistency so the recordings I made in the past with cats were based on that research of providing that consistency through repetition basically through through a pattern that the incoming thing that kept coming back I'm now really for right now anyhow just focused on dogs in my new company
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:25
and the cat music is at higher frequency because you said the dogs we want the low frequencies so the cats are a higher frequency?
Lisa Spector 27:31
No because the cat same thing the cats also will they can hear higher frequency but that's not a good thing that still charges their nervous system.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:40
Okay, so it's just a lot of repetition. When I've listened to cat music, it sounds very similar.
Lisa Spector 27:47
Yeah, this is not cats. This is piano music. For cats. It's not cat sounds for cats. Yeah. Yeah, because I always liked it. You know, unless you have an extremely well trained, if it's a dog, extremely well trained Border Collie, you're gonna be turning on your, you're gonna be saying, you know, Alexa, play whatever, you know, turning on your stereo, or whatever it is. So unless you train your cat or dog to do that, so you're in control. So I want the people to really enjoy the music as well.
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:20
And so you said you do recordings, and I think you do some live events for people. And we kind of talked about doing one and it's not working out right now. But I'm hoping to Yeah, or we do a live event and people can have tune in with their dogs and see how they respond. If someone wanted recordings of your music, are they on YouTube? Are they on discs? Are they something we can download.
Lisa Spector 28:43
So there's several ways they're on I don't print CDs anymore. People don't have CD players. So they're on all the streaming channels. If and if you go to MyZenPet.com/tips, then I will send you the link to where it's streaming. It is also on the homepage at MyZenPet but with the tips you get because it's not just the music it's how to use the music, when to use music, the volume to use music so you get tips of how to use the music for separation anxiety, sound phobias, excessive barking, hyperactivity, all the things so those tips will really be helpful for you to really build the correct conditioning response that you want with that music. And then I also have if you don't stream on at MyZenPet.com you'll see I have Dog Gone Calm Forever. So people don't stream I have another online program where in the Forever became a request around listeners who wanted to play their music, obviously when they were gone and have more and more music. So there's more available in the Forever list there's volumes of that amount of Dog Gone Calm. Volume One is on streaming. When this airs it will be 2,3,4,5 and 6 of Dog Gone Calm, and Dog Gone Calm forever.
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:01
Wow. Dog Gone Calm lub. I love it. I love it. And I think the tips is great, because, I mean, I have so many more questions that we don't have time for them, unfortunately. But, you know, do I do I have to condition my dog to this? Do I use it as a training tool? You know, or do I just turn it on and walk away? And I'm sure all that information is available at myZenpet.com/tips. And so cool what you're doing, I first of all, I love music, I would have loved to have been a musician. It's just not me. It's in my genes. It's just not me. So and I was a musician at one point.
Lisa Spector 30:33
Well, I'm glad you get to hear your mom play though. So that's everything
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:37
me, too. So I gotta figure out I can only play right handed. I gotta figure out the left. I'm the opposite of you. But thank you very much for all you do. There you go. And thank you for agreeing to come on. Thank you for your concert. It was awesome. And you know, I'm hoping everybody around here is going to sleep.
Lisa Spector 30:56
My pleasure was such an honor. Thank you so much, Dr. Judy.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
Disclaimer
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
