You could always count on hearing our dog bark when you walk toward the front door of our house.
Now, you might hear symphonic music too.
To fully understand this story, you first must try to understand the weird connection my wife and our 3-year-old Goldendoodle dog share. It’s entirely possible the love of my life and our 30-pound nonshedding mix of a golden retriever and a poodle might actually be soulmates.
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You should see how they look at each other. You should see how close they must be when they’re together. You should see the way they try to ease one another’s pain. It’s really remarkable.
It’s also remarkable how much this dog barks. If someone approaches our house, this dog barks. If there’s a person walking on the sidewalk across the street, he barks. If a cosmonaut sneezes at the International Space Station, he barks. The most-uttered words in our house must be “shut up.”
Over the holidays, my wife became worried about how upset this dog gets during the day while we’re away at work or school. She guessed he barked once or twice a day in the seven hours no one is usually home. She knew he craved interaction, based on the nose marks on the window next to our front door, where he sits and waits for her return every day.
She found a skill for Alexa devices called “Calm My Dog,” which responds to a dog’s bark by playing music from a symphony orchestra. It continues for 30 minutes, and it’s kind enough to send you a notification that your dog barked and was now listening to classical music.
In the past week, I’ve returned home to find our dog listening to performances of “Sonata for Piano and Cello in D Major” by Christoph Croise and Oxana Shevchenko, “Violin Concerto in D Major” by Yossif Ivanov and the Brussels Philharmonic and “The Nutcracker” by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
I believe the dog must really like the music. I generally find him in the vicinity of the speaker playing the music.
I also believe the dog might like the music a bit too much. According to the notifications, he barks around 10 times each day, setting off the music. Given that he’s only left alone for seven hours and the music plays for 30 minutes, that means there are only two hours a day where he’s not being moved by a symphonic movement.
I suspect that must be when he’s sleeping and probably dreaming about barking the moment my wife returns.
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David Trinko is editor of The Lima News. Reach him at 567-242-0467, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
