Do Dogs Like Music?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 128, 5 December 1941, Page 5

Do Dogs Like Music?

HEN Pongo came to our neighbourhood we were informed that he liked classical music but not romantic. He detested Schumann and disliked Chopin. Broadly speaking, he liked his music to be restrained and dignified--I can only think because he wishes to reserve to himself the right to let go and express himself without any dignity at all. Whatever his reason, he has his own way of enforcing his likes and dislikes. When his mistress sits down at the piano in the evening, Pongo is usually in the room -I have said that he is a spoilt dog, and, because of his age and his infirmities, allowed ‘all sorts of liberties. You see, he is now nearly ten and takes full advantage of the fact. So he is generally one of the audience-but not a silent one. If his mistress begins to play Schumann, he becomes plaintive at once; low moans; little whinnies, imploring grunts -Pongo is working himself up. " Now watch," says his mistress over her shoulder; for a time Pongo is content with expressing himself from his own corner of the room. But presently it is too much to ask an

old dog to bear-and he rises with soft groans and makes his way over to the piano, casting himself with a resounding sigh at his mistress’s feet. Should She still persevere in her Schumann, Pongo suddenly, as if by accident, brings his chin hard down on the soft pedal. Almost unbelievable I know-and I said so; I said it was an accident, a lucky flukeand his mistress repeated the whole performance. There is no doubt at all that that is Pongo’s rather despotic way of expressing his preferences.-(" Pongo ~-a Dog with a Personality." Mrs. Mary Scott, 2Y A, November 1.)