Hello there!
We are the Canns! Over the past few years, we have been volunteering at the West Valley Animal Shelter. When we began, it didn’t take long for us to look around and see the needs that exist for elevating the life of shelter animals while they await their furever homes.
An immediate need we have seen, is to create a more calming audible environment for the animals to reduce their anxiety. Shelters are loud. One noise from any given place in the shelter can be enough to set off a domino effect of barking or cat meowing that triggers the rest of the animals to follow suit.
After doing some research on pets and music, we came across a type of music developed by sound researcher and music producer Joshua Leeds. This specially arranged classical music is formatted with dogs' and cats' hearing sensitivities in mind and is designed to help create a calmer environment for them. It is called iCalmPet music and was developed using research in animal bioacoustics. You can read further about this through the iCalmPet website here: https://icalmpet.com/about/music/.
Joshua Leeds has created musical compilations such as “Calm Your Canine”, “Cat Calming” and “Human-Animal Bond”, that can be placed on a specially designed pet speaker called the iCalm Pet Speaker. We were curious to see how animals would respond to this, so we purchased a couple and put them in the shelter. The results were amazing - dogs barking suddenly calmed and cats stressed in their cage settled into their beds. As soon as the music turned on, some animals physically oriented their heads towards the speaker with peaked curiosity. Seeing this response made us want to get one of these in every room of the shelter.
After talking with the shelter staff, we learned that although a free CD is made available for shelters by the iCalmPet website, the shelter does not have an audio system capable of broadcasting to every room. After considering all the options available, we have decided that the portable iCalmPet speaker is the best solution for the shelter.
So with that information, our goal is simple:
To place iCalmPet music speakers in every room at the West Valley Animal Shelter.
Many shelter animals wait far longer than anyone expects. While they await their forever homes, we’d love to have you join us in elevating their shelter situation by bringing these speakers into their space. If you’d like to help, please consider donating any amount through the link below. If donating isn’t possible, sharing this post would mean so much.
Blessings,
Kelly and Barry Cann
“Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds.”
— Proverbs 27:23 (ESV)