A focus group for dogs

Sylvie reports on this great story about a focus group for dogs: "a a "doctor" Kim Ogden, animal communicator, but apparently these people decided to use qualitative and quantitative data in order to figure out what songs dogs actually want to listen to."

200 canines were queried as to their preferences in lyrical content and music type. This population represented dogs of both sexes, many ages and varied breeds from geographical locations across the US and Canada. Companion, agility, conformation, obedience, tracking, therapy, and shelter dogs were represented. 125 dogs were asked what they would like to hear in a song. The canines were offered a series of choices. For each response, Dr. Kim sent a mental picture of the choice, along with the thought or words about the choice for each topic. The same picture was provided for each participant. Topics were taken from Kr.(sic) Kim's notebooks. These note books provided information for the selections of things dogs often asked for in order for them to be happy or happier.

For music types, dogs across the US from private consultations, shelters, clubs and shows were broken into focus groups, and were provided with 10 four-minute music selections. Dr. Kim then turned on a CD player with the selections and went around the room for each song, pausing long enough to hear what each dog thought. Based on these results, tallies for the music types were calculated. Tracks to the songs were then recorded and Dr. Kim took the selections, via CD and tape recorder to more canine participant focus groups. Comments for the songs were recorded in detail and the music was adjusted accordingly resulting in the first in our "Ask The Animals" series of CDs and videos-"Songs To Make Dogs Happy!".