Canine-Human Music: A Zoömusicological Inquiry

Abstract

This project positions canine-human music-making as a compelling site for rethinking music, collaboration, and relationality beyond the human. Guided by the premise that musicality in species beyond humans, songbirds, and whales has been historically overlooked—and that music-making with domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) has often been framed through the lens of comedy—it seeks to challenge species boundaries that diminish recognition of animals’ creative capacities. Within the field of zoömusicology, I facilitated co-created interspecies encounters to investigate canine responses to music within human–dog relationships. Using musical improvisation, I engaged with dogs and their carers in diverse settings, cultivating bonds and observing vocalisations and behaviours. Drawing on reflexive ethnographic methods, I gathered qualitative data (fieldnotes, behavioural descriptions, sonographic analyses) that support the classification of these interactions as forms of “musicking” (Small 1998). I also conducted in-depth interviews with dogs’ carers and analysed online and archival media featuring musical dogs—a pluralistic genre amplified by digital technologies and global media—to explore how musical practice shapes relationships and the ways people and dogs approach such practices. Across these stages, some dogs displayed behaviours that appear to exceed assumptions about canine vocal limits, including pitch-matching and rudimentary mimicry. The research foregrounds the relational aspect of music as central to examining such practices, suggesting they may also be understood as forms of play. The project culminated in a participatory workshop-performance with dogs and humans, designed to shed light on canine musical curiosity and to frame the phenomenon through shared play and joy. I propose that canine–human musicking offers embodied, affective modes of ecological attunement—inviting humans to reconsider their place within, rather than above, the more-than-human world.