the pain of fireworks as demonstrated by The Dude.
Domestic dogs and cats, like their wild, hunting relatives, rely heavily on their sense of smell and hearing to locate prey and danger, and to communicate. Cats and dogs are able to hear a wider range of sounds, and softer sounds than humans. The pitch of a sound is measured in Hertz (Hz) and the comparative hearing ranges of dogs, cats and humans are the following:
Humans: 20Hz – 23 KHz
Dogs: 60Hz – 45 KHz
Cats: 45 Hz – 64KHz
To give you a practical example of this: 64Hz (roughly the lowest note a dog can hear) is the pitch of the lowest key on a piano. For every doubling in Hz, the pitch goes up an octave. Cats, with the top range of 64KHz vs 23 in humans, can thus hear sounds at least two and a half octaves higher than humans can! This is why dogs and cats respond to dog whistles. The sound is too high for us to hear, but still within their hearing range.
As a matter of interest, the animals said to hear the lowest sounds are elephants and ferrets (12 Hz) and the animal capable of hearing the highest sound is the Beluga whale (120KHz!)
Cats and dogs also respond to a much lower intensity of sound than humans. Sound intensity is measured in decibels (dB). Dogs can hear five times more acutely than humans, and cats about twice as acutely as dogs. Like Hz, dB also increase exponentially, so 30dB is ten times as loud as 20dB, and 40dB is 100 times as loud. A practical example is that a whisper weighs in at about 30dB, and a dog can hear that from almost three times as far away as a human. Cats are even more sensitive than dogs to these soft sounds. This also explains why dogs and cats are so scared by the sound of fireworks which, to us, do not seem so loud. They are in fact at least 5 times louder to our pets!
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some tips to help your dog during the hell.
7/7/11
Bass - Ferret and Elephant
the pain of fireworks as demonstrated by The Dude.
Domestic dogs and cats, like their wild, hunting relatives, rely heavily on their sense of smell and hearing to locate prey and danger, and to communicate. Cats and dogs are able to hear a wider range of sounds, and softer sounds than humans. The pitch of a sound is measured in Hertz (Hz) and the comparative hearing ranges of dogs, cats and humans are the following:
Humans: 20Hz – 23 KHz
Dogs: 60Hz – 45 KHz
Cats: 45 Hz – 64KHz
To give you a practical example of this: 64Hz (roughly the lowest note a dog can hear) is the pitch of the lowest key on a piano. For every doubling in Hz, the pitch goes up an octave. Cats, with the top range of 64KHz vs 23 in humans, can thus hear sounds at least two and a half octaves higher than humans can! This is why dogs and cats respond to dog whistles. The sound is too high for us to hear, but still within their hearing range.
As a matter of interest, the animals said to hear the lowest sounds are elephants and ferrets (12 Hz) and the animal capable of hearing the highest sound is the Beluga whale (120KHz!)
Cats and dogs also respond to a much lower intensity of sound than humans. Sound intensity is measured in decibels (dB). Dogs can hear five times more acutely than humans, and cats about twice as acutely as dogs. Like Hz, dB also increase exponentially, so 30dB is ten times as loud as 20dB, and 40dB is 100 times as loud. A practical example is that a whisper weighs in at about 30dB, and a dog can hear that from almost three times as far away as a human. Cats are even more sensitive than dogs to these soft sounds. This also explains why dogs and cats are so scared by the sound of fireworks which, to us, do not seem so loud. They are in fact at least 5 times louder to our pets!
+
some tips to help your dog during the hell.
