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How to make a Spotify Pet Playlist
Whether walking around the neighborhood, grabbing a drink with friends, or hiking through the foothills, many pet owners want to bring their furry companions everywhere. Spotify wants to enhance this precious relationship with a dedicated pet playlist. A Spotify Pet Playlist curates music based on your listening preferences and your pet’s personality. The result is a playlist that you and your furry friend can enjoy together.
How to make a pet playlist on Spotify
Making a pet playlist on Spotify takes just a few minutes.
- First, you need to create a Spotify account. You can sign up for the free, ad-supported tier or subscribe to Spotify Premium.
- After you make the account, enter this URL into your browser: https://pets.byspotify.com/. Follow the prompts.
- Select your pet. Spotify supports five pet types: iguanas, birds, cats, dogs, and hamsters.
- Interact with the slider to determine where your pet’s disposition falls on the spectrum of energetic, friendly, and curious.
- Input your pet’s name and upload a photo of them. The latter is optional, if you opt out of a photo upload, Spotify will default to an animated picture of your pet type.
- In just a few seconds, Spotify will set up a customized playlist for you and your pet. The playlist starts with 30 songs, and you can add more manually.
Now, you’re off to the races and ready to enjoy your playlist with your favorite pet. In typical Spotify fashion, the company nudges you to share your playlist on social media using the hashtag #SpotifyPets.
What’s the point of making a pet playlist on Spotify?
While the jury is still out on the scientific benefits of music on pets, these Pet Playlists are just for fun. I get a kick out of seeing how Spotify’s algorithm attempts to please my cat and me. I expected my Pet Playlist to exclusively feature instrumental songs. To my surprise, Spotify filled it with lyric-driven songs that sit in my heavy rotation.
Ultimately, the Pet Playlist is a fun quiz that results in a playlist you'll probably like and your pet might enjoy.
Although these playlists are for pet owners’ amusement, Spotify did some legwork by consulting David Teie — a renowned cellist with America’s National Symphony Orchestra. Teie is also a music researcher. You can find his articles on music and cognition in journals such as the Biology Letters of the Royal Society and Applied Animal Behavior Science. His album “Music for Cats Album One” has garnered over six million streams on Spotify alone. Teie’s input informed Spotify’s team of each animal species’ general likes and dislikes.
Anecdotally, my cat relaxes when listening to Teie’s dedicated Music for Cats album over Spotify’s combined playlist. Yes, it’s fun to make a pet playlist but specialized songs, like Teie’s, will likely be more effective at calming your pet than Spotify’s pet playlist.
Frequently asked questions about how to make a Spotify Pet Playlist
Yes, you can create multiple pet playlists for all of your pets. Each time you create a playlist, you’ll need to follow this link: https://pets.byspotify.com/.
These animals don’t have ears, so Spotify doesn’t cater to them.
By default, your playlists are public on Spotify. To make your new playlist private, click the “…” button and select “Make Private.”