Spotify Now Has Playlists for Pets Left at Home

If you take pet parenthood seriously, Spotify will compensate when you're busy with work -- by bringing out a podcast and range of playlists aimed at soothing lonely pets. The streaming music giant with 113 million subscribers has launched a series of "algorithmically curated" pet playlists.

The new platform feature allows users to curate playlists for pets. 

The Swedish audio streaming site released a study they conducted on how pet owners use music with their companion animals.

Among 5,000 users from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Spain, and Italy, Spotify discovered that 71% of participants play music for their pets. 8 out of 10 believe their pets like music. Thus, Spotify introduced its Pets Playlists.

Half of the users believe their pet likes the same type of music that they do.

Spotify also released a new podcast for dogs left home alone. My Dog's Favourite Podcast was created by Spotify Studios to "calm and reassure your dog" and to "bark less and sleep more."

It features "dog-directed praise and stories" along with soothing sounds and relaxing music. The sounds are designed to help mask startling sounds of the outside world such as traffic, car doors slamming or the bins being emptied. The podcast is voiced by British actors Ralph Ineson and Jessica Raine, from Game of Thrones and Call The Midwife respectively.

To create a personalized playlist for your pet, first, click Pet Playlists on the Spotify website. Next, pick your pet. The 5 options are cat, dog, iguana, bird, or hamster. These select animals have ears. Then, choose the traits that best describe your pet's personality, such as relaxed, energetic, shy or friendly. Lastly, put in your pet's name and a photo for the playlist cover. Listen and post about it, using #SpotifyPets if you prefer to.

Seemingly designed to be trending, this has been one of the ways Spotify has had luck standing out from competitors like Apple Music that have largely the same music offering.

The playlists are synced with subscribers' musical tastes and pet species.

The findings of the aforementioned study showed that classical and soft rock are the top two genres that pets prefer, while Bob Marley, Elvis, Freddie Mercury, Bowie, and Ozzy are the top 5 artist-inspired pet names.

The algorithm that syncs both a user's listening habits and a pet's personality traits is to ensure that content is appealing to both pets and their owners.

Spotify sought help from musicologist David Teie, a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra who pioneered species-specific music and composed two albums of Music for Cats. Teie's expertise informed the calculation, like how dogs don't like low-register tunes because they can feel threatening.

A news release said that an energetic dog might be provided with a playlist upbeat tracks while a shy cat might get a playlist with slower tempos.

A Pet Playlist features approximately 30 tracks and 74 percent of UK owners already playing music for their pets.

You can create your playlist at spotify.com/pets.

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