Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson, and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music can make our lives better and spotlight the resources you can use to enhance your life with music. My guest today is Janet Marlow. She was a guest here on episode 161, talking about her research on species specific music for pets that’s designed to calm anxiety and improve behavior and health for multiple species, including horses, cats, rabbits, birds. That conversation was more of an umbrella conversation about Janet’s work and findings in general, and she was so full of information and resources that I knew immediately I wanted to have her back as a guest to talk about one of the specific pet categories. So she’s back today. Since we do have a previous episode that focused on music’s effect on dogs health and behavior, I asked Janet if she could enlighten us today on how music can affect lives, enhance lives for another common pet. Being cats. And before we jump into our conversation, I’ll reintroduce Janet. Janet is a renowned expert in sound and its effect on animals and humans. Her research led to the creation of Pet Acoustics, a company specializing in creating music scientifically designed to reduce stress and promote well-being in pets. Beyond research and product development, Janet is an advocate for animal welfare and sound’s role in animal wellness. She collaborates with veterinarians, trainers, and behaviorists. Pet acoustics award winning products have helped thousands of pets and pet parents, veterinarians, and rescue shelters worldwide. Welcome back to Enhance Life with music, janet.
Janet Marlow: [00:01:52] Mindy, thank you so much for that wonderful intro. And it’s great to be back a second time; what a compliment. And I’m very excited to talk about cats because that’s how it all began. So I just want to share with you, since we’re going to talk about how I even started on this. And it’s very interesting. This is the first time I’ve been introduced, starting with pet acoustics, because, as you know, I previously was a recording artist and and a composer for humans. But the tipping point came with my cat Osborne. Mhm. So I wasn’t allowed to have pets as a child. So as soon as I became an adult.
Janet Marlow: [00:02:39] As soon as I had an opportunity, I ran to the shelter and I saw this black and white cat who was about five months old at that time, um, sitting in a cage with two dogs with, you know, missing ears. And I swear he said to me, please get me out of here. So I adopted him, and we had him in our lives for 15 years.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:03] Wow.
Janet Marlow: [00:03:04] And he was just, you know, our first baby. So, uh, he was very communicative with me and and hung out with me as soon as I performed practice for performances on my ten string guitar. And one day, he was injured in our woods, and we called him. For two days, it was pouring with rain. He crawled out of the woods. I rushed him to the vet for five days. I went to sing to him in the ICU. Wow. And when he passed, um, uh, I just started having these burning questions about. Okay, so all my pets come to my side as soon as I take my guitar out, and they they’re not only just resting, but they’re, like, deeply relaxed and spend time listening in the aura of the vibrations and sounds of my ten string guitar. And I, you know, I continued on my career and my recordings, but then I kept thinking about Osborne and what his life was like, and my dogs were like having music as such a profound relaxation tool. So I started reaching, reaching out to universities and getting as much data as I could.
Janet Marlow: [00:04:18] But because I knew how to record, mix and master music, I started thinking, well, if music is used to move humans, do I want to agitate a cat with loud sounds and and high frequencies? And you know, I want to really have music that’s going to put them in a state of calm. That is what they require during the day. So, for example, we know that there’s flight behavior, right? And there’s flight behavior. But really, the mainstay of their lives is rest and calm because they conserve their energy in the wild to hunt. So they continue that behavior in our homes. So I realized at some point that it can’t be the same approach. I can’t every, you know, all the training that I’ve had since day one of my life of understanding classical music and the dynamics and the tempos and the the triple pianissimos or the triple fortes to the, you know, to for the excitement and the phrasing. Everything that goes into to music for humans really requires the opposite approach for an animal.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:41] Sure, there’s a different purpose for it, a different function.
Janet Marlow: [00:05:45] Yeah, right. So, um, I know there are a lot of people play Mozart, a lot of people play Beethoven, Chopin, whatever it is, spa music, all of these things, they all have frequencies that are not appropriate for the hearing sensitivities of cats, because we’ll just focus on cats. Yes. So there’s a there’s a physical component to sound and music for an animal. And that is and this is taken me years to simplify the concepts. Um, is that air is a conduit for sound. And when you have music or sound that enters a cat’s ear, which is triple the hearing sensitivity of a human, so our human capacity is 20 to 20,000Hz, and a cat’s hearing capacity is from 40 to 5000Hz.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:48] Okay. Wow.
Janet Marlow: [00:06:49] They’re incredible. So that hearing sensitivity, as soon as there’s a frequency that goes into the ear, that triggers the eardrum to send a nerve to the brain to decide a behavior, and that is instantaneous. Whereas we’re spatial conceptual, we can we can say, oh, that fire engine that’s incredibly loud and hurting my ears is not going to kill me as it goes past me. But for an animal, that just means I’m out of here. Yeah, I’m moving away from that sound. Yeah. So cats are incredible, and Osborn really was the one that put me on that path of understanding. And I’m forever grateful to him.
Mindy Peterson: [00:07:31] So. Was that sort of you observing his reaction and response to your singing when he was in the ICU that really got your attention and put you on this musical career species specific path?
Janet Marlow: [00:07:44] I have goosebumps you just describing that because it’s bringing me right back to me doing that. And I could see when an animal is soothing and communicating back to you, they blink their eyes very slowly. Mhm. And that’s what he was doing as I was singing. And that was the signal that I knew I was communicating my love for him through sound that he was soothed by, and he was happy to have that soothing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:15] Wow. Wow. You could tell you were connecting and he was receiving what he needed from you at that moment. Yes. Wow. So you already talked a little bit about the frequencies that cats hear. Tell us a little bit more about the musical characteristics, whether it’s pitch or tempo or volume that cats hear and respond to, and how that may differ from what we hear and how we respond.
Janet Marlow: [00:08:40] Yes. So I love to just start with this imagery of when a cat. You, and I’m sure many of your listeners have observed a cat just sitting quietly in the ground, you know, in the grass, just sitting, and you think that they’re just kind of gazing into the air or they’re just resting. But no, they are listening to the moles in the ground.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:03] Oh, wow.
Janet Marlow: [00:09:04] So, so nature has paired animals in the most unquote natural way. So moles and cats have the same high frequency hearing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:18] Mhm.
Janet Marlow: [00:09:19] So a cat can hear a mole, but a mole can hear a cat. So it’s like bats and mosquitoes have the same frequency range. Okay. Um, so it’s just fascinating when you dive into it. So for cats to experience sound in the air which is invisible to us. So remember, we are just even though love humans, but we are very limited in what we can hear. And so the world of animals, which is what I’ve been researching for the last 25 years, is that they hear things that we don’t hear and that affects their behavior. So it’s been fascinating to me to understand that about cats and to be able to accommodate the composition, to fit kind of the center of their hearing range without the frequencies, you don’t want to have ultra high and sub low frequencies in music, which you can measure. So if that frequency is in the music, it triggers hyper vigilance.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:29] Okay.
Janet Marlow: [00:10:30] So I eliminate that from the I eliminate the highs and the lows in the music. And through the years the research and the good results that I’ve gotten from the music that I’ve composed has been in two parts. One has been anecdotal evidence, but in the last ten years I’ve been able to do biometric results and analysis with a biometric collar that’s made by the PetPace company.
Janet Marlow: [00:11:01] And did studies with groups of cats. Some were in Australia, some were in the UK. Some were in the United States. Wearing these collars and these collars can in real time, show me while the music is playing, their pulse rate, their HRV, their activity level, whether they have a high temperature or low temperature. Those three are very important. The activity level, the pulse rate and the HRV. The heart rate should be, the pulse rate should be low, and the hrvs. That’s the the statistical analysis in between the heart rates that can determine stress. So if you have a higher HRV that means you are experiencing stress okay. And stress is what I’m counteracting with music.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:02] Are there certain stressors that are specifically common to cats and are they similar to like, I know dogs really get stressed by thunderstorms? Are cats similar or are there different stressors for cats, and are there different stressors for cats, whether they’re, say, adopted or rescued as an adult versus as a kitten?
Janet Marlow: [00:12:24] Wow. Lots to say. Because cats hear three times more than humans. So just think of that capacity they are Moving towards and away from sounds all day long. That’s the first thing in our homes. It can be the wine from the refrigerator, or the rumble from a truck or an airplane, or a vibration on a window. And not only that, but a cat. And I love this. They will find the sweet spot in a room where there is the least amount of agitating sounds, and they will stay there and rest. Okay, yeah, so stress for a cat is not always sound. It can also be pain. They can very often get stomach upsets that that’s a stressor. Adopting having another cat adopted into the home. That’s an emotional stress for the.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:29] For the cat who’s already there.
Janet Marlow: [00:13:31] The cat that’s already there or the Christmas party with your, you know, closest 25 relatives coming in, you know, with with their coats and their shoes and their vibration and, and their vibes, you know, they’re highly, highly sensitive creatures and they’re tough to, you know, because they show their dislike to their environment. And a lot of people think that cats are subtle and that dogs are very obvious if they don’t like something. But quite frankly, if you look that little extra bit of time deeper into a cat’s, um, ears and their facial expression and their body language, I mean, behaviorists are well versed in this. You can see that they are telling you right there and then exactly what’s going on in their lives.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:23] Hmm. So tell us about some of the resources that Pet Acoustics offers for cats and their humans. And and when they’re best used if it’s during a thunderstorm or when you’re off to work during the day and you don’t know what sounds are going to be hearing while you’re gone. Tell us about that.
Janet Marlow: [00:14:41] Well, my whole company is pet centric, so I’ve through the research and the composition. So I’m kind of a businesswoman and a composer and a sound behaviorist. And so I try to bring those three roles into the products that I produce to make, make it, just turn it on, leave it. And, you know, you’re giving your cat their best lives.
Mindy Peterson: [00:15:08] As opposed to a radio where you turn it on and it might be a great song that they’re starting with, but you don’t know what’s going to be coming on next. Yes.
Janet Marlow: [00:15:16] Well, that is a very good point. So TV and radio is not a therapy for an animal for several reasons. And I’ve written books on this, and that is because we as humans always perceive animals from our 5 to 6 foot perspective. However, animals live 1 to 3ft off the floor, and I always suggest sometimes to pet parents, you know. Have you ever crawled around on the floor of your home to experience what your dog and cat is experiencing in terms of vibration and sound and environment and air airflow and, you know, it’s that’s their world is below us. So the music is installed into a Bluetooth speaker. Bluetooth speakers have much, much higher quality of of output. Okay. Um, but going back to radio and TV. So TV is reflective. The speakers are behind. If you have a smart TV or behind the speaker and they are, that sound is bouncing off the wall.
Janet Marlow: [00:16:26] Okay. So that’s reflective. And then a radio which is usually five feet off the ground. You have it on a kitchen counter or on a shelf somewhere that’s above your cat’s ears. So I feel very strongly about this. I know some people just use Alexa. They’ll say, okay, Alexa, play spa music for my dog. And they close the door and they expect that to work for their pet. And maybe it does, but my Bluetooth speakers are really designed to be near the pet because, for example, if a thunderstorm does roll by your home and your cat is home alone, that is going to be a major stress for your cat. And I know people think, okay, these are just animals, but over time, when a cat’s ears will just talk about cats and or dogs over time, once that loud sound is hitting the eardrum that affects the cilia, which is behind the eardrum, and that the cilia is really what determines hearing health and that cilia starts to flatten. This is over time. And this is where hearing starts to diminish in an animal.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:48] So your Bluetooth speakers, are they automatically designed to play at a certain volume that is heard by the cats. Not too loud, not too soft.
Janet Marlow: [00:17:57] Exactly. You want to be able to control that. Not only that, but they feel the music.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:03] And then do the pet parents put that Bluetooth speaker on the floor so that it’s the best placement?
Janet Marlow: [00:18:10] Yes, they can, or near where the cat is is going, but I would say nine out of ten times if you put the Bluetooth speaker on the floor, the cat will come and sit next to the speaker.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:23] Oh, How interesting.
Janet Marlow: [00:18:24] Yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:25] So you have you sell these Bluetooth speakers that are pre-programmed with species specific music. In this case, we’re talking about cats, of course. Yes. Is the music also available on Spotify? I know you mentioned CDs were used back, you know, in the old days or is it the Bluetooth speaker really the only way to access and play the music?
Janet Marlow: [00:18:49] Well, up and coming in March, I have a patent for the first free pet hearing test for dogs and cats.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:00] Ooh, yes. Tell us some more about this. So this is something new on the horizon that listeners are getting a sneak peek at.
Janet Marlow: [00:19:06] Here you are. You are the first. So I’ve already done the testing of 25,000 dogs and cats worldwide. Wow. Because the test is available on the pet acoustics website. Yes, it takes a few minutes to do, and then you get an email result of if your it’s broken down into high frequency mid-frequency and low frequency hearing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:30] So this is a hearing test for your pet. And it’s for dogs, cats.
Janet Marlow: [00:19:36] Dogs and cats. There are only two other methods that are used in the world. One is veterinarians will click behind the ear of a dog or a cat and just make an observation and say, yeah, your dog and cat hears. Or you can take it to a veterinarian that has the Bayer brainstem machines, which are sensors that go onto the pet’s body. I’m sure that’s going to be highly stressful for them. But, you know, that’s.
Mindy Peterson: [00:20:06] Probably more expensive than your online test, which I think is free, right?
Janet Marlow: [00:20:11] Yes, yes, yes, definitely more expensive. Um, and so I’ve already done a published in peer reviewed study in the International Animal Health Journal based on 4000 dog and cat data from doing this test. And lo and behold, they’re just like humans. They we start off with great high frequency hearing. And then as we age, this diminishes. As soon as a dog or a cat becomes a senior a little bit more, a little bit later. Um, for a cat, they will maintain their hearing slightly, but you have to anticipate that your dog or a cat will be losing their hearing to some degree. And what this does, it shows maybe your dog or cat is not responding to you as well in their senior year, but they will still respond at some level. So this will help a person determine if they’ve just lost their high frequency hearing, but can still hear mids and lows.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:19] Okay, so it’s very similar to your hearing test that’s currently available on your website, but it will be available in app form.
Janet Marlow: [00:21:26] It will be an app form globally. All you have to do is and for veterinarians to be able to just take this or you’re just at home, you can taste it. To taste it, you can. I must be hungry. It’s lunchtime. Um, uh, you’ll be able to just test it from your iPhone or any device. But in addition to that, there will be a subscription for music for dogs and cats that you can have on an app form, which is very exciting for me, because then it’ll just broaden the use of the music in so, so many, many more ways.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:03] Sure, if a cat gets a test result on their hearing that indicates that they’re losing the higher frequency end, are there recommendations that you give in terms of how to play your music for them so that they’re still…
Janet Marlow: [00:22:19] Yes, there’s going to be a blog page for advice on how to utilize the music. Yes, that’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be out there.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:27] And when is the app available and what will it be called?
Janet Marlow: [00:22:31] It’s going to be called Pet Acoustics. And it will be available, we’re just learned today, the first week in March. And if if your listeners are really keen on being the first to know if they go on to the Pet Acoustics website and join the newsletter, they will get that information. And we anybody who joins the newsletter we give discounts to for all of our products.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:57] Wonderful. And I’m just looking at my tentative release date. It looks like when this episode releases, that app will probably be available right around that time. So hopefully as listeners are hearing this, they can immediately go to either Google Play or their Apple Store and go ahead and download that. Is that where the app will be available?
Janet Marlow: [00:23:18] Yep. Available everywhere.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:21] Wonderful. Any other resources that you want to mention that Pet Acoustics offers to cats and cat parents? I know you mentioned the blog and that there’s I noticed there was a great article on your blog on adoption and socialization for cats helping cats thrive in their new environment. So definitely, I encourage listeners to go check out your blog, any other resources on your website, or offered by a pet acoustics that you want cats and their parents to know about.
Janet Marlow: [00:23:52] Yeah, there are three websites that have a great deal of information. One is called the International Cat Care. That’s a trusted source for health and behavior. Um, the Cornell Feline Health Center. They give advice on cat health. Highly recommend them. And there’s also American Association of Feline Practitioners, and they recommend veterinary cat care. You know, a lot of pet parents don’t bring their cats to the veterinarian for checkups.
Mindy Peterson: [00:24:27] Okay.
Janet Marlow: [00:24:27] Because it’s so hard to get them one into the cat carrier. Oh, and two cats have terrible motion sickness in a car. And I can share a. Well, I think we’re going to have a story.
Mindy Peterson: [00:24:43] Yeah. If you’re ready to get into that, let’s go ahead and do that. And before we do that, I just want to mention I’ve been in the world of music pretty much my entire adult life, my career. First, I taught piano lessons for decades, and then more recently, I’m working for a music retail store. It’s the Steinway dealer here in Minneapolis, so I’m constantly working with musicians as my colleagues and as my customers. And I have noticed very anecdotally, there’s nothing scientific about this, but it does seem like musicians really have an affinity for cats. I just feel like there’s a lot of musicians who love cats, who have cats as pets, and it sort of makes sense because a lot of musicians do have very unpredictable schedules. Cats tend to be much more independent than dogs. They can be left…
Janet Marlow: [00:25:31] And nocturnal.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:33] Okay, yes, they can be left for longer periods of time, but even my music teacher friends who have pretty consistent schedules, maybe teaching in a private music studio, a lot of them have cats. So I’m really excited. I’m thrilled to have this conversation and put it out there for listeners to learn more about it. Go ahead.
Janet Marlow: [00:25:54] We musicians need an audience.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:57] Have you noticed that also about musicians?
Janet Marlow: [00:26:00] Yes. We need an audience. The cats come right in and they’re they’re our audience.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:05] So, I mean, I certainly know many musicians who have dogs as well. And I know you have a dog, but it definitely seems the overwhelming majority of pet owners who are musicians have cats over dogs.
Janet Marlow: [00:26:17] I’ll share with you. I live next door to Bill Evans. I was his neighbor for two years and friend, and had the privilege of knowing Bill Evans and hearing him play music, and he had two Siamese cats.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:31] Really?
Janet Marlow: [00:26:32] Yes, yes.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:33] Interesting. Well, I know your coda has a story about a cat. But when we were discussing this, you happened to mention something about vets who are prescribing music over Prozac for cats. And I just, I thought, wow, I need to hear more about that. So tell us more about that.
Janet Marlow: [00:26:53] Well, I had a friend who told me about this man. He was a Broadway producer, and he would travel with his cat, his beloved cat from, you know, New York to Connecticut. But the cat had a terrible, terrible time in the car, terrible time with motion sickness. And so the veterinarian recommended Prozac to just calm the cat down. But after a time, the cat started getting kind of secondary responses to the Prozac and it was making him sick. So my friend recommended Pet Tunes feline, the small Bluetooth preloaded speaker, and the guy.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:36] That’s that’s your pet acoustics speaker, right?
Janet Marlow: [00:27:39] Pet Acoustics’ Pet Tunes Feline. And he used it in the car for his cat, and he noticed that the cat wasn’t throwing up, wasn’t queasy. By the time he got there, everything was fine. And he explained to the veterinarian and they checked out the cat and he said, he said, you can take your cat off Prozac and just use the music, and I’m going to start recommending pet tunes feline to my cat clients instead of Prozac.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:09] Wow.
Janet Marlow: [00:28:10] Which was. I mean, I’ve had so many business joys from hearing wonderful stories from different customers. This was wonderful to hear, and I’m starting to hear other veterinarians are recommending pet tunes for their clients first, rather than putting them on. You know, the world has changed. You know, instead of we would just pill animals all the time, but now we’re holistic. Um, we’re approaching them in such a gentler, kinder way. Um, it’s very rewarding to hear this.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:45] Oh for sure.
Janet Marlow: [00:28:47] Yeah. So that that’s very exciting. I recently and this is bridging back to humans and I love this story. And this is a week old. So a woman called and said, I want to tell you this story. My uncle is in hospice and he’s dying. And a friend of mine had brought over your Pet Tunes Canine, to my house and said, I heard that your uncle’s hospice facility only has TVs, so there’s only TVs, and there’s no music channel on the TVs. And, you know, TV these days is very has very a lot of unpleasant. Yes things, you know, and imagine this 92 year old man is dying and his environment is either silence or not good TV.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:44] Yes.
Janet Marlow: [00:29:45] So she brought over the Pet Tunes Canine and started playing it for her uncle, and he was smiling and soothed. And he loved it. He loved it. It was it was a gentle environment. Not only that, but her family who was surrounded him. They appreciated it as well. And so she said to me, I bought 20 of your Pet Tunes Canine, and I’m in honor of my uncle, I’m donating them to each room in the facility so that other people can have that soothing and calm and gentleness.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:25] Oh, wow. Oh, love that boy. And how rewarding for you to hear that as the innovator and the creator of this music and this product and all the research that you’ve put into that.
Janet Marlow: [00:30:38] Yes.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:38] Wow. Yeah. That’s incredible. Well, the last couple topics here that we’ve covered in the last couple of minutes could easily be your coda. And so I’ll just ask one of those, your coda. I mean, as you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending. A coda by sharing a song or story about a moment that music enhanced your life. Did we just have that, or do you have another song or story that you wanted to share in closing?
Janet Marlow: [00:31:07] Well, first of all, my mantra is calm is health and balance is longevity.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:14] Well, and that’s a great way to. One thing we didn’t even have time to cover is how the music through affecting the cats calmness and just reducing agitation and all that, how that has the effect on their health. But what you just mentioned sort of bridges that gap there.
Janet Marlow: [00:31:32] I can give a brief rundown. So calm boosts immune function. And cats are very sensitive creatures, as they say. They can get infections easily. You know, a lot of stomach upsets. It improves heart health by having less stress reduction so that the HRV is is of a higher number. It enhances digestion for cats having a stress free environment, and people can use the music in many different situations, you know, grooming, bringing it to the vet. Although a lot of veterinarians have the music already in their exam rooms. Excellent. You know, the car rides travel during thunderstorms. You know, any time that there’s going to be I mean, a lot of people play the music 24 over seven and people get creative. So there’s just, you know, many, many uses. And it also it supports their mental wellbeing. It gives cats a sense of balance in their lives. And it calms anxiety and animals get depressed. Another cat has died. And that cat feels the emptiness and loneliness of that experience, so it helps behavioral problems. It’s a very gentle, simple, elegant way of helping animals feel balanced.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai