Pets and Music!

[KorrepZ]

Has anybody ever noticed your pets are not bothered by loud music? I'm a house/techno freak myself and there is always music sounding from my livingroom. My cats however do not show any signs of irritation when I turn the volume up.

I wonder if they are listening along and enjoying it as much as me! If so, then they have a broad interest in music like me hehe. As I play about anything from rock to techno, from reggae to hiphop

[marksrush]

I am also a house freak (check out protonradio.com), and all my pets seem to be totally unfazed by my music, even when it's loud. My rats sleep right through a 2-hour mix, as do my cats. My birds are the exception, however: they tend to start getting noisier when the music starts.

[side19]

my fish don't seem to be phased at all by my drums. even with the vibrations caused by the bass drum they don't seem to mind it at all. they just go about their normal business as if nothing is going on.

[jus85411]

i had a lutino cockatiel that would start whistling louder when the music started getting louder, and sometimes looked like she was enjoying it, bobbing her head up and down for a minute or two at a time. his name was rex because the people who the pet store got it from that i worked at said a blood test was done and it was a male, then he laid eggs and became "Roxy, the Trans-Cockatiel"

[marksrush]

Now this is odd: I've noticed that my bunny gets a little excited when I play loud house music with a heavy beat. And by excited I mean aroused.

[Flutter]

Rabbit arousal and dominance can be easily confused (both are humping). It is possible that the music makes it uncomfortable which causes it to present dominant behaviour as it's upset and nervous.

Just another option.

[marksrush]

Yes that could be it, Flutter. Rabbits thump when they're scared or stressed, and what is thumping but the generation of a strong vibration in whatever surface the rabbit happens to be on at the time. So perhaps he's hearing the "thump thump" of the bass and drums in my music and interpreting it as a warning from some other bunny that he can't see. It doesn't seem to bother him enough to leave his spot at my feet, though.

[Flutter]

My boyfriend's rabbit thumps at anything. He's such a loser It then scares the one dog who gets the other dogs going...

He's a better guard (errr, alerter) than the dogs

[marksrush]

Hehe cool.

Mine's only thumped a couple of times. The first time was one evening when I entered the living room and walked over to my GSP's tank, then turned around to look at my bunny a couple of yards away. All of a sudden he shot under an end table and then went behind the sofa, and started thumping like crazy. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was that spooked him. Maybe he thought I was giving him the stink-eye or something.

The second time was when I tried to introduce a female Holland Lop (my Jethro is a Mini Lop) to him so he could have a companion throughout the day when I'm at work. I kept her in her cage, but placed it in the living room which was at that time Jethro's main territory and left it there for a week. Finally, one evening I opened her cage door to see what happened because Jethro had been lying beside her cage, seemingly totally relaxed, for most of that week; they had been touching noses, and I'd seen absolutely no signs of aggression or anything like that. Well, Jethro kind of went nuts when I let her out: he started chasing her, circling around her, and getting on top of her to mate. After the second or third mounting, he started thumping and circling around her and showing other signs of aggression, so I put her back in her cage and found another home for her. (The fact that she definitely did not like my cats made it easier to re-home her.) He hasn't thumped since then, at least not when I've been around to hear it.

[Flutter]

Both of ours thump quite readily. His rabbit thumps all the time and at everything. My rabbit thumps when it's time to catch her and put her back in her cage. My rabbit is really nasty though, she growls and charges. The cats are terrified of her because she goes after them. She seems to hate people and attention. I'd really like to know what happened to her before I got her.

That's normal when introducing two rabbits together. Establishing who's dominant. Ideally you should have introduced them in neutral territory and then kept them together in neutral territory. If that works then you would move her to his territory and move them around a lot so territory can't be established. Once they're fully bonded then they can establish their territory.

ETA: your bunny sounds very lucky Free range bunnies are awesome, unfortunately both of ours are destructive.

[marksrush]

Yes, I got very lucky with my bun-bun! He was a customer surrender, cage and all, and I had been wanting a bunny for a while so he came at a good time. At the time we had sort of a store pet rabbit named Wild Boy (an agouti Mini Rex), and I was leaning towards choosing him - but for some reason that I still haven't figured out, I chose the quiet little black and white customer surrender bunny and I have not regretted it for one microsecond. I had no idea these guys could be such marvelous pets! Mine loves me dearly and is constantly following me around the house when I'm on the move, and he lies at my feet when I'm watching TV or sitting at my computer desk. He has never chewed on a cord and doesn't dig or scratch. However he does hate being picked up, so I give him that. The only downside so far is that you REALLY have to watch where you step, because when he lies at your feet or follows you from room to room, he gets so close that I and my partner have both come close to stepping on him. He will actually cut in front of you when you're walking like he's trying to get you to stop! I love the little guy like I've loved few pets in my 52 years of life, and I literally thank God every day for him. He has the run of the house, and is pretty well litter box trained. He sleeps beside my bed at night.

[Flutter]

Awwe