The Dog Soundscape: Recurrence, Emotional Impact, Acoustics, and Implications for Dog Observations and Dog–Human Interactions

Abstract

While numerous dog behavioral studies use environmental sounds, the dog soundscape remains undescribed. We proposed a list of 79 sounds classified into six categories: Dog, Dog accessories, Human, city and vehicles, Garden, countryside and weather, and Household. In a survey, 620 dog owners scored the frequency of their dog’s exposure to, and thus, the recurrence of, each of the 79 sounds, from never to daily. The survey results also extended to about 25 sounds the number of acknowledged sounds that are likely to elicit stress or fear, that is, negative emotional sensitivity, in dogs. Sound recurrence and emotional sensitivity were not correlated, showing no beneficial effect of frequent exposure to, and no deleterious effect of scarcity of, sound events. We suggest that for the sake of dog welfare, researchers, veterinarians, trainers, and owners may limit dogs’ exposure to the sensitive sounds identified in the study during their dog observations and dog–human interactions. A corpus of 84 sounds was collected. The sounds were spectrally analyzed by determining their F0 and 10 dB bandwidth parameters. At the lowest sound frequencies, where canine hearing is poorest, negative emotional sensitivity was generally low. At the middle and high sound center frequencies/F0s, sensitivity greatly varied from lowest to highest, which is incompatible with both the general assumption and dog auditory detection thresholds. How emotional sensitivity relates to F0 (pitch) and hearing sensitivity remains undetermined. Finally, we suggest that future behavioral audiometric studies of dogs may maximize the spectral spread of each sound while minimizing the spectral overlap between sounds so as to reduce both the testing duration and the risk of inadvertently targeting or, conversely, missing frequency-dependent hearing impairments.