Spotify For Dogs And Cats? Streaming Service Launches New Playlist Creator And Podcast For Pets

Spotify is now offering playlist generator to create custom playlists for a person’s pet to enjoy while home along and launched a podcast that will help alleviate a pet’s stress.

The new playlist generator went live on Spotify’s official website Wednesday, titled “Pets Playlists.” It presents a user with five pet options – dog, cat, bird, hamster and iguana – for the user to choose from. It will then ask the user to outline their pet’s personality traits before giving its name and, possibly, a picture.

Spotify takes all this information and creates a custom playlist with the pet’s name attached that it can enjoy.

The new feature came about after Spotify surveyed users that were pet-owners and their pet’s music habits. It found that one of every four owners would leave music on for their pets while out, with 42% saying their pet had a favorite genre.

Supplementing the new playlist generator is a new podcast, titled “My Dog’s Favourite Podcast.” The podcast is voiced by English actors Ralph Ineson and Jessica Raine and runs for two, five-hour shows designed to “help alleviate stress,” Spotify said. It includes Ineson and Raine speaking reassuringly to the pet, calming music, and ambient noise.

Spotify teamed with animal psychologists Neil Evans and Alex Benjamin to develop the podcast. Evans, a professor from the University of Glasgow, said the podcast is designed to help a dog potentially reach a more “relaxed physiological state.” Benjamin, who works at the University of York, also said the podcast helps by masking “startling sounds of the outside world such as traffic, car doors slamming or the bins being emptied” to stay calm.