Audible Launches 'Audible for Dogs' to Help Pet Parents Calm Their Stressed Canines

In addition to a mutual love of hamburgers and lazy sunny afternoons in the backyard, dog owners can now share their affinity for audiobooks with their furry friends. As Fast Company reports, Audible has launched Audible for Dogs, a new service designed to keep canines relaxed while their owners are away from home.

Some people play music for lonely dogs, but according to an Audible press release, a 2015 academic study revealed that audiobooks worked better than tunes to calm stressed-out pets. To investigate the phenomenon further, Audible teamed up with Cesar Millan, the dog behaviorist who’s better known as the "Dog Whisperer." Their own research—which they conducted with 100 dogs, in partnership with Millan’s Dog Psychology Center in Santa Clarita, California—found that 76 percent of participating dog owners noticed that audiobooks helped their pets chill out.

Dog owners can play Cesar Millan’s new Guide to Audiobooks for Dogs—which is both written and narrated by Millan—for initiation purposes, along with a curated rotating selection of dog-focused audiobook titles including Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, performed by Trevor Noah; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, performed by Rosamund Pike; and W. Bruce Cameron’s A Dog’s Purpose, performed by William Dufris. Each title features a special video introduction by Millan, in which he explains why the book is suited for doggy ears. (Pro tip: According to Audible’s research, dogs prefer narrators of the same gender as their primary owners, and books played at normal volume on an in-home listening device.)

Don’t have an Audible subscription, but want to see if your dog succumbs to the purportedly calming magic of audiobooks? New listeners can listen to one free Audible for Dogs selection with a 30-day membership trial.

[h/t Fast Company]