Do Cats Like Music? What the Research Really Found

Ask whether cats like music and the honest scientific answer is not a simple yes or no. A small home experiment found that cats showed more interest in compositions designed around feline communication than in the human music selected for comparison. Later veterinary studies found some promising behavioural effects, but not a consistent benefit across every setting or measure.

That evidence does not show that a cat has a favourite chart song, recognises human genres or shares an owner's taste. Researchers observed behaviour—such as orienting towards a sound, approaching it or appearing easier to handle. Those actions can tell us that a stimulus mattered to the cat; they cannot translate the animal's private experience into “I love this song.”

The date matters too. The key preference experiment was published in 2015, not 2025. A veterinary-clinic trial followed online in 2019, while a 2022 hospital study produced a more mixed result. The research suggests a possibility worth testing gently, not a guaranteed feline playlist.

What did the 2015 cat-music study test?

Charles Snowdon, David Teie and Megan Savage tested 47 pet cats in their own homes, with their owners present. The cats ranged from five months to 19 years old. Each heard two three-minute examples of music composed for cats and two examples of music composed for humans, with the order counterbalanced.

“Species-appropriate” did not mean any track marketed with a cat on the cover. The feline compositions were built around frequency ranges and tempos intended to relate to cats' natural communication. The researchers then recorded how often and how quickly the cats oriented towards or approached the sound.

The cats showed more orienting and approach behaviour towards the cat-specific compositions and responded sooner than they did to the selected human pieces. That is the study's useful finding. It was a behavioural comparison involving four pieces of music, not a survey of every genre, artist or individual cat's favourite song.

One author composed the cat music. The paper says the other two designed, conducted and analysed the study independently, and it declared no conflict of interest. That context belongs in a careful reading of a small experiment.

What happened during veterinary examinations?

A later Louisiana State University study used a randomised crossover design. Twenty healthy cats completed three veterinary visits, two weeks apart. At different visits, each cat experienced silence, one selected human classical composition or one cat-specific composition. The sound began during a ten-minute acclimatisation period and continued through the physical examination.

An observer scored video without its audio, reducing the chance that the scorer knew which sound had been playing. During and after examinations, cats in the cat-specific condition had lower behavioural stress scores than they did with silence or the selected classical piece. Handling scores were also lower, meaning the cats were easier to examine under that study's scoring system.

The physiological result did not match the behavioural one. The researchers found no difference between conditions in the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio they used as a stress measure. The study therefore supports a possible short-term behavioural benefit in that clinic protocol; it does not show that music removed all stress or changed every biological measure.

Later results were more mixed

In another study, 35 hospitalised cats were randomly assigned to cat-specific music, classical music or no music during 31 hours of hospital care. Mean Cat Stress Scores did not differ between the three groups across five assessments.

The cat-specific group had more positive social interactions at the first assessment only. The classical-music group had a lower average respiratory rate than the control group at one assessment. Too few suitable saliva samples were collected for a meaningful cortisol comparison. The authors said both types of music might have some benefit, while noting substantial limitations.

A separate 20-cat experiment published online in 2023 tested recordings of purring, eating sounds, a mixture of the two and silence in an unfamiliar environment. The mixture reduced visual scanning, but it did not significantly change the other recorded behaviours. The researchers concluded that these cat-related sounds did not produce pronounced stress relief. This was not a test of composed cat music, so it cannot cancel the earlier music findings; it does show that adding familiar feline sounds is not automatically calming.

What the studies do not prove

None of these experiments supports a universal percentage of cats that “prefer” cat music. They do not establish a genre ranking, a taste for famous artists or a playlist that works for every animal.

They also cannot tell us exactly what a cat feels. A quicker orientation could reflect interest, novelty or arousal. Lower handling scores in one clinic are useful, but they do not turn music into a treatment for anxiety, pain or illness. The samples were small, the sound selections were limited and the settings differed—from familiar homes to examinations and hospital cages.

The best summary is therefore specific: some cats in small studies responded differently, and sometimes more positively by the researchers' behavioural measures, to compositions designed around feline-relevant acoustic features. The evidence for reliable calming across cats and situations remains mixed.

How to try music without forcing the experiment

If you want to see how your own cat responds, make choice the main part of the test:

1. Start when the cat is already settled rather than during a crisis.
2. Play the sound quietly and avoid sudden changes in volume.
3. Keep the door open and provide a familiar hiding place so the cat can leave.
4. Change one thing at a time. Comparing quiet music with a quiet room is more informative than switching rapidly between loud tracks.
5. Watch the whole cat, not one ambiguous sign. Relaxed posture and voluntary approach matter; flattened or turned-back ears, a tense body, wide pupils, hiding or leaving are reasons to stop.

Cats Protection notes that purring is not proof of contentment on its own: cats may also purr when stressed or in pain. Context and the rest of the body language matter. If a cat develops a persistent or unusual behaviour change, speak to a vet rather than trying to solve it with sound.

So, do cats like music?

Some appear interested in certain feline-specific compositions, and a small clinic trial found lower behavioural stress and handling scores while one was played. Other work has found weaker or inconsistent effects. That makes “some cats may respond to some carefully designed sounds” a fair answer; “cats love music” is not.

Your cat does not need to pass a listening test. Keep the volume low, leave an exit and let the animal's behaviour decide whether the room needs music—or simply less noise.

Sources and update record

• Snowdon, Teie and Savage: *Cats prefer species-appropriate music* (Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2015)
• Hampton and colleagues: veterinary-clinic crossover trial (online 2019; print 2020)
• Paz and colleagues: music during hospitalisation (online 2021; print 2022)
• Bian and colleagues: cat-related sounds in a novel environment (online 2023; print 2025)
• Cats Protection: reading cat body language

Correction and material revision — 23 August 2026: An earlier version misdated the key research as a 2025 study and included an unsupported percentage, artist and genre claims, technology speculation, an unattributed anecdote and an unverifiable quotation. Those claims have been removed. This replacement distinguishes the 2015 experiment from later studies and preserves the original publication date.