A billion streams puts you in the same league as musicians including Drake, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles.
But one producer has hit this milestone by focusing on four-legged, furry listeners instead of human beings.
Speaking from Los Angeles, Amman Ahmed tells DailyMail.com he pioneered the idea of music for pets via a YouTube channel, playing songs and listening to dog owner feedback until he created music which genuinely relaxed the animals.
He tapped into a post-pandemic trend when separation anxiety among pets got worse when animals got used to spending so much time with their working-from-home owners.
Amman Ahmed started investigating what music relaxes dogs and cats (Music for Pets)
The pioneering dog musician now offers dozens of playlists to relax cats and dogs, and says that his ‘creative process’ is driven by his four-legged listeners themselves.
Hip hop fan Ahmed said: ‘I initially started out making music for people to help with insomnia – and one friend joked, “Let me try that on the dog.”
To begin with Ahmed’s approach was ‘experimenting and coming up with ideas,’ but most importantly relying on feedback from dog owners on what worked and what didn’t.
‘When we started, there was only a little bit of scientific research on this,’ he said. ‘So the tracks we made, some worked, and sometimes it didn’t. But we got the basic idea: “OK, maybe there’s something here.”‘
‘We started producing different frequencies, different kinds of music, and most importantly, getting as much information as possible, from the dog owners, the dogs that are using it, and then learning from there.
He said: ‘This is focused purely on how we can have a positive impact on the life of a cat and dog. And as long as that’s like front and center, we can build around that.
‘Then we started to get messages about how the music was the only thing that would help dogs with their anxiety – and how even particular songs were the ones that helped. So we built from there.’
His company, Music For Pets, was acquired by U.S. based Create Music Group after a surge in popularity for animal playlists, with Create now planning to invest $10 million in the company and its brands Relax My Dog and Relax My Cat.
Some dogs enjoy the music from Music for Pets so much that they rely on it to relax every day – and one dog even had a track played at his funeral, Ahmed said.
Music For Pets has playlists for cats and dogs (and has experimented with creating music for guinea pigs and hamsters) and Ahmed said that users rely on them to deal with dogs’ separation anxiety, or when they take the animal to the vet.
The company has had feedback from owners who say that the music can help with everything from canine depression to hyperactivity in cats.
He says that the company now has ‘superfans’ who rely on the music to calm their animals.
He said: ‘We got a message saying, ‘My dog really loved this track. It was the only thing that helped them with anxiety for years, and my dog passed away recently. Can I use the music for our dog’s funeral as a way to remember?’ That really left me speechless.’
The company has experimented with using sounds only animals can hear, but mostly tries to create music both dogs and humans will enjoy.
Ahmed said: ‘It’s always split down the middle, because the dog and the human are both going to be consuming it, knowing that if the human is consuming it and the human is relaxed, that energy passes on to the dog as well. We’ve always had both in mind.’
Subscriptions to the service cost $4.99 a month, and more than 42 million animals have tuned in, the company says.
The service offers music and videos tailored to dogs and cats (Music for Pets)
Cats are difficult customers, Ahmed admits (Alamy)
The company also makes videos aimed at cats and dogs, and has now recorded videos in Los Angeles, Barbados and Portugal among others (with some taking the form of ‘virtual walks) and others involving drone footage.
Ahmed says that while creating music that dogs respond to is relatively easy, entertaining cats is a much more difficult job (and it’s also difficult to work out if cats even enjoy the music.
He said: ‘Cats are a very, very tricky audience. We took the same approach with Relax My Cat, but there’s a lot more guessing, because you don’t ever really own a cat, and they’re obviously very stubborn as well.’
‘We’ve experimented a little bit with guinea pigs and hamsters and rabbits, but that’s even harder.’
He says he now hopes to expand his team, create more content and forge new partnerships.
He said: ‘The lives of the pets we have touched, those stories, I always love to keep that idea front and center, knowing this is the impact that we have. I am a dog lover myself.’
Ahmed says that he previously launched a music business (for humans) in his native Britain, which failed, which taught him a lot of lessons, and informed the approach he has taken with Music for Pets.
He said: ‘I grew up in not the best environment, and I managed to scrape through college and somehow start a business.
‘When you grow up in a rough environment, it can go both ways – it can impact in negative ways, or you can take the positive out of all the negative experiences and it eventually helps you to be positive in life.’
