It's Killing the Dog!

[man dough nollij]

I've heard references here on Cafe about the way our pets respond to our playing. It's been extremely cold and nasty here in Livingston lately, so Conan has been inside with me most of the time (we go to the dog park whenever it's decent out).

Conan obviously has very sensitive hearing (note the huge ears...). He seems genuinely pained when I play the mandolin. After leaving him for ten months while I had my international adventure, he really wants to be my shadow now-- except for when I pick up the mando. He makes a face like he want's to lay lovingly at my feet, but my playing is like an icepick in the ear to him.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

PS: Merry Christmas!

[Leigh Coates]

My old dog is a Border Collie cross, and until she lost a lot of her hearing during the past year, she hated my playing. Sometimes she would "sing", only I had the impression it was actually heckling. Now she's OK with it, but she can't even hear the doorbell.

Leigh

[mandroid]

So someone else thinks your High E string response is plenty strong enough,
at least in the range of Dogwhistle overtones .

[man dough nollij]

So someone else thinks your High E string response is plenty strong enough,
at least in the range of Dogwhistle overtones .

That could be it, Mandroid! Maybe in my ignorance, I'm actually tuning to some higher octave of E that I can't hear. That would explain all the shattering glasses...

[Ivan Kelsall]

My cat just sleeps through everything. Maybe he's hinting at something !!??,
Saska

[CES]

Provided I don't chase them around the house (which I only did once, and it was not ETOH fueled but rather a fun game of chase with my kids the dogs got in on, just for clarification) with my mando mine seem to tolerate it pretty well. They don't like the banjo much (but tolerate it when I don't use fingerpicks, so I think it's a volume thing), but that's no different than a lot of folks on the Cafe

What really gets them, though, even at low volume, is when I turn up the distortion on the Mandobird...I think the combo of sound and vibration in the floor just drives one of them crazy...

[Marcus Kaufman]

Like the OP, we have Corgi dogs; big ears and all (that's a picture of Gracie below; as top dog, Lucy is not inclined to pose for pictures).

Anyway, both of them don't seem to mind the Mandolin at all, although Gracie shows genuine concern sometimes when I sing in a minor key.

At this year's Christmas party we led a sing-along with a quartet of mando, uke, guitar and accordion and the dogs parked themselves at our feet and slept through the whole thing.

[JEStanek]

Dogs have much more sensitive hearing than us (cat's too). Others have posted studies where women have more sensitive ears to higher pitches than most me and that explains why some women prefer the sounds of the Octave Mandolin more than the regular mandolin.

Jamie

[Gail Hester]

We've noticed that our Wheaten Terrier seems more comfortable around a mandola.

[Greenmando]

Kids love to sit on my porch, all it takes is a few licks on my b**jo and I am kid free.
The dog loves it all.

[Mike Bromley]

My cat Prickles and his sister Velcro don't seem to mind the mando much. But pick up any electric guitar, and it doesn't even have to be plugged in, and the two of them set about with this crickety chirping noise. Doesn't matter if it's a bass or a guitar, Strat or 335, whatever. They sing and head for cover.

My playing must suck....for cats, at any rate.

[Ted Eschliman]

My two Shelties love the mandolin, but only because of several years of Pavlovian conditioning. I like to get up a couple hours before my wife and daughter to do some authoring and practicing. When I get to my basement practice area, they get treats, and expect more so they generally sleep around my feet while I play, only in anticipation of getting more treats. Mando=snacks.

Electric mando is a different story. As mentioned, the higher/louder sound drives the one with more sensitive hearing crazy, and he waits at the top of the stairs for me to finish.

[Bikewer]

My pups (a chocolate lab and a golden) tolerate all my instruments just fine except for one, the harmonica. When I try to play in high registers, I get a facefull of dogs.

[Elliot Luber]

When I was a kid my jack russell used to howl along with my sister's clarinet. Couldn't blame the poor pooch, though.

[jim_n_virginia]

My sister had an old chow that would always walk in and sit at my feet whenever I would visit her. And one day I notice that whenever I played my mandolin the dog would leave the room.

So one day as an experiment with witnesses I walk in and sat down and sure enough the old dog would walk in the room and sit at my feet.

I pulled out my mandolin and plucked the A string once and I didn't even pluck it very hard so there was NO WAY it hurt the dog's ears.

And SOON as I plucked the string the old dog just got up and walked away to another room. It cracked us all up! LOL!

Seems the pooch just didn't like mandolin music that's all!

[Jackie Walters]

This brings back a fond memory for me. When I was young we had a Collie- Corkie was his name. Everytime my Dad would get his guitar out, Corkie would get all excited. My Dad would start to sing a country tune, and Corkie would join right in. He'd howl right with my Dad. It was a sight to see, I wish we would of had a camcorder back then. Corkie's mouth would make the perfect circle. It didn't matter if they were in the house, or out on the front porch, there was my Dad and Corkie, pretty as a picture and one that will forever be etched in my mind...

[M Hollen]

My pups (a chocolate lab and a golden) tolerate all my instruments just fine except for one, the harmonica. When I try to play in high registers, I get a facefull of dogs.

Same with me, I can play anything but the harmonica. Once I start in on that, it's all over but the howling.

[Bill Van Liere]

I love these animal threads, it's great to see your dogs all.

It is not my mando playing that irritates my dog so much as my singing. As part of my routine practice I do vocalizations (singing scales, intervals ect.) and the dog always howls along with me, thanks Clara-Belle, nice compliment. I guess that's because I am a Bluegrass singer so I am doing a bit of howling myself.

Merry Christmas to you and your four footed friends!

B

[catmandu2]

Cold and nasty? We are loving the snow here in Missoula--this dog is too crazy to be bothered by anything so fun..

[Coffeecup]

Marcus mentions the minor key. I've been wondering for a while if other animals, birds etc recognise harmonies in the same way that we do? Harmony has a mathmatical base but does that mean that all ears respond to the math in the same way?

[Ace]

Well I never noticed this until one night I was in the family room picking a few practice tunes I was trying to learn and Susan, my better half, not the dog, came in and said, "have you noticed what your dog is doing"? My dog's name is Bud by the way and I said "no what"? She said he is in the BR playing along with you with his toys. I said "yea right"! She said "try it and see for yourself"! So Bud, being the best dang dog a man could ever want and I'm very proud he owns me, is a mixture of Austrailian cattle dog & Blue Heeler, and he has many many toys that I spoiled him with as a pup (he's just over 2 yrs old now and obviously still spoiled) that squeek when gripped in the mouth. I keep the toys in an old clothes basket but HE keeps bringing them all out and puts them in a nice circle on the floor as if he is herding them. He herds anything that he feels needs it. Ok back to the playing! I start to play a tune on my mandolin and then out of nowhere, he starts squeeking his toys like crazy. I stop, he stops! I play, He plays. You say it's a coincidence right? It happens ALL the time, not just that night! I can start playing in the afternoon with him right at my feet and before I know it, he's in the BR playing too! He does it any day, any night, any time!

Talk about back-up? If I could just teach him to keep in time!

Ace & Bud (the mando squeeker)

[Cheryl Watson]

This is interesting. My family members think that a mandolin is an "icepick to the ear" too--nice way to describe it. At first I thought it was just me but when Ricky Scaggs plays his Loar on CD or on TV, they cringe too--said he sounds the same as me. Well, I'll take THAT as a compliment!! HAHA!! But, cat Chloe will lie right beside me while I play. She loves guitar and mandolin.

Cheryl

[bshpmark]

I got Meli (rhymes with jelly) when she was one week old. She had been abandoned with her three brothers in a bag on the side of the road. We bottle fed her every 4 hours for almost two months. To help her sleep, from the first night we played classical music every time she went to bed for about a year. So she does not have an aversion to music. In fact, if she hears me playing my 12 string guitar she will come into the room, hop up on the bed, and lie there usually sleeping. She is part pit and part chow from what we can determine. We derived her name from Saint Melangell of Wales who was a woman that took in orphaned animals and people needing a place to stay. We can't figure out how she got the knot in the middle of her forehead.

[allenhopkins]

From Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy:

Uncle Charlie Interview

I was borned in Kaufmann County, Texas,
That was in, uh, eleventh of September eighteen and eighty six.
Come to 'Californee' in nineteen and six.
I didn't have to go to Worlds War I or, I was too old for World War II.
One good thing that I've always been proud of-
I was the youngest in the family, and the rest was all married,
And I've taken good care of my mother and father as long as they lived.
There was a feller up here at the post office one day he was a pettin' him,
I says to him, that dog, you have no idea how smart he is, I just thought I'd tell you.
You ain't tellin' me nothin', I know all about it!
Kids would come here, "We wanta hear old Ted sing!"
And in them days, I fooled with him more then, I could just commence this way,
I want you to sing now, Doh, Doh, Doh, Wooo!
Now I have to take the harp and make a sound before he'll sing.
Teddy, come here! Come on, come on out from under there.
There now, sit down, sit down Teddy.
Now here, I want you to sing, sing these folks a song, sing 'The Old Rugged Cross'!
Listen, chorded to this now, here!

[jim_n_virginia]

I got Meli (rhymes with jelly) when she was one week old.

We can't figure out how she got the knot in the middle of her forehead.

COOL it looks like a third eye!