Saturday 21 April 2012

T is for Trombone Hatred/Adoration

Yet again, I have broken my promise of one post a day. woops :/
Well, I'll keep on track by doing two today...
I am well aware that the title of this post may be very perplexing. But read on and you'll hopefully understand. When I about thirteen, my brother decided to learn to play the trombone. He was so excited about his rented trombone from the school we were at, so he decided to show us how far he'd got in the lessons.
It was then that we discovered the fatal flaw of practicing at home.
As soon as he started to play, my Brown Labrador (I only had one at the time) started howling like there was no tomorrow!
Like he was watching some sort of blood bath, or, perhaps that he was in the middle of one! Crying wolf, literally (and non-literally!) We, being cruel humans, found this utterly hilarious and continued on my brother playing, of course.
The dog howled and howled, and continued howling about half an hour after my brother had stopped playing.!
What was even more hilarious was how he stuck his nose in the air, as if it took tremendous amounts of effort to get the noise out!
What was it that made him do this?
My brother lost interest in the trombone about two years later (maybe less) and a few years after that, we got a Black Labrador as well.
Meanwhile, we had discovered that harmonicas did the same.
So, we thought, at last, we have a normal dog!
Until I started to learn the guitar and mum bought an electric whisk.
Now it's the black Lab howling first, and, perhaps, my brown dog tries to join in and provide harmony. Mum's a singing teacher, so maybe she could help their abysmal noises?
So now we have two ridiculous noses sticking high up in the air, eyes closed, howling with all their might. Makes me wonder why they bother, when the brown Lab is too lazy to even greet guests. Isn't that a Labrador thing? Mum seems to think he's got a dog form of autism, but she seems to think that anyone who is not exactly like her must have some form of autism, however slight.
Well, anyway, to this day, we've never really worked out why they do it and whether they like it or not.
So, for your benefit, just so you could learn something by reading this, I bothered to google it.

According to the Universities Federarton of Animal Welfare, the effect of music on dogs has been proven. Listening to certain types of music may actually help with the welfare of dogs - for example, music with soothing qualities.
However, there are also certain types of music which agitate dogs and should not be played around them.
For example, heavy metal agitates them while Classical Music soothes them.
In my opinion, this seems suspiciously human. I think dogs mostly work off body language, so when we play classical music, we are calmed, and therefore so are the dogs. However, my hypothesis is just that; a hypothesis and has not been 'proven' as this information supposedly has been.

What is your opinion?
M. x

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