The question of whether musicality is uniquely human has driven decades of comparative research across species, from songbirds to primates. A new study examining domestic dogs suggests the capacity to perceive and respond to pitch may have far older origins than previously assumed.
Aniruddh Patel, a psychologist at Tufts University in Massachusetts, and his colleagues set out to test whether dogs howling along to music — a widely documented behavior on social media — reflects genuine pitch perception or simply an instinctive, undirected vocal response. The study, published in Current Biology, concludes it is something closer to the former.
The research drew its initial motivation from wolf behavior. Pack howling, according to the announcement, involves individuals apparently seeking distinct tones from one another, producing a discordant chorus theorized to simulate a larger group and deter predators. “Howling has some similarities to human singing, in that these are long, sustained vocalisation,” Patel says, adding that wolf biologists had theorized the animals “were actually paying attention and changing their pitch.”
The Experimental Design
Rather than study wolves directly, the team worked with dog owners who recorded their pets howling to a personally preferred track in its original key, then in versions transposed three semitones above and three semitones below the original. To ensure statistical reliability, each dog had to produce at least 30 howls, each lasting at least 1 second, for each transposed version. The study focused on two ancient breeds — Samoyeds and shiba inus — selected for their closer genetic relationship to wolf ancestors relative to modern breeds.
All four Samoyeds studied demonstrated consistent pitch adaptation across the transposed versions, though none matched the key exactly. The two shiba inus showed no such sensitivity. Patel describes the Samoyed behavior as deliberate rather than reflexive: “They’re trying to have some relationship to what they’re hearing with their own voice; they’re not just being triggered to unleash some instinctive and inflexible response.” He hypothesizes that genetic variation within ancient breeds may partly explain the divergence between the two groups, while acknowledging that a larger sample could produce different results.
Implications for the Origins of Human Music
The findings carry weight in a long-running theoretical debate. One prominent view holds that human singing evolved from the fine motor control associated with speech, enabling complex sound imitation. The dog data complicates that picture. Because the animals display pitch control without any broader capacity for vocal learning, the study suggests language need not have been a precursor to musical coordination. “It’s possible that our ability and desire to coordinate pitch with others when we sing has very ancient evolutionary roots, and may not just be a byproduct of our ability to imitate complex sounds,” Patel says.
As for why dogs engage at all, Patel’s observation is that the animals appeared genuinely absorbed — gazing into the distance rather than looking to owners for reward — leading him to suggest music functions as “a surrogate howl-like signal” that activates a social drive to join in.
Buddhamas Pralle Kriengwatana at KU Leuven in Belgium, who co-authored a separate review on musical appreciation in non-human animals, finds the results intriguing but calls for broader sampling, specifically a direct comparison between ancient and modern breeds. On the dogs’ imprecise pitch matching, she offers an alternative reading: “Who knows, maybe they want their voices to be heard, and to hear themselves singing.”
Photo by Pixabay
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