https://petacoustics.transistor.fm/episodes/hearing-loss-is-hiding-in-plain-sight

Hearing Loss Is Hiding in Plain Sight: What 10,615 Pet Screenings Reveal

What if the dog who suddenly seems stubborn is not ignoring you?

What if the senior cat who cries during the night is not simply becoming difficult?

What if a pet who startles when touched, sleeps through familiar sounds, or no longer comes when called is experiencing a change in hearing?

These questions are at the heart of Episode 49 of the We’re All Ears podcast—and my recently published study in the International Animal Health Journal, which analyzed 10,615 behavioral hearing screenings of dogs and cats across 86 countries.

The findings reveal that hearing loss may be far more common—and far less recognized—than many pet parents realize.

Nearly Half of the Pets Showed Reduced Hearing Responses

Among the animals screened, 46.5% showed no observed response in at least one frequency band.

High-frequency hearing decline was the most common finding, with 50.2% of the animals showing no observed response in the high-frequency range.

This is especially important because high frequencies often fade first. A pet may still hear a door closing, footsteps, a deep voice, or other lower-frequency household sounds while already losing access to higher frequencies.

To the family, that pet may appear to hear normally. But their auditory world may already be changing.

Hearing Loss Can Look Like a Behavior Problem

Hearing changes often develop gradually, making them easy to misinterpret.

A dog may stop responding to familiar commands. A cat may vocalize more loudly or begin calling at night. A pet may startle when approached from behind, become anxious, withdraw socially, or watch family members more closely for visual cues.

These changes may be labeled as:

• Disobedience

• Anxiety

• Aggression

• Cognitive decline

• Normal aging

Sometimes those conditions may also be involved. But hearing loss could be part of the picture—and unless we screen for it, we may never know.

This is why I often say: sound comes before behavior.

Before correcting an animal’s behavior, we should consider whether their sensory world has changed.

Senior Pets Face a Greater Risk

The study showed a clear relationship between age and hearing response.

Among pets under seven years old, 42.5% showed reduced responses in at least one frequency band. For pets aged seven and older, that number increased to 50.2%.

Complete absence of response across all three frequency bands was also more common among senior pets.

However, hearing wellness is not only a senior-pet issue. The findings among younger animals demonstrate the importance of establishing a hearing baseline earlier in life and monitoring for changes over time.

Why Isn’t Hearing Routinely Screened?

Veterinary wellness examinations routinely evaluate the eyes, teeth, heart, joints, skin, and weight. Yet hearing is rarely assessed unless a family has already noticed a significant problem.

Among 318 veterinary clinics and animal care professionals included in the research, 79.2% reported having no existing hearing assessment product or protocol.

One respondent shared that they typically clapped their hands loudly or dropped a heavy book to see whether a pet could hear.

While these methods may produce a reaction, they cannot show which frequency ranges the animal can detect. A pet may respond to a loud, low-frequency sound while already experiencing substantial high-frequency decline.

This is the gap behavioral hearing screening was designed to address.

Behavioral Screening Is a First Step—not a Diagnosis

The Pet Acoustics+ hearing wellness platform presents species-specific sounds across low, mid, and high frequency ranges.

The observer watches for functional responses such as:

• Ear movement

• A head turn

• An eye shift

• Whisker movement

• A change in body orientation

The screening takes only a few minutes and does not require sedation, specialized equipment, or clinical training.

However, behavioral screening is not a medical diagnosis and does not replace Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response, or BAER, testing when a formal audiological evaluation is needed.

Instead, it provides a practical first step: establishing a baseline, identifying possible changes, monitoring hearing over time, and determining when further veterinary evaluation may be appropriate.

How Pet Parents Can Help

If you notice a change in your pet’s responses, do not immediately assume they are ignoring you or simply getting older.

Watch for signs such as:

• Sleeping through familiar sounds

• Reduced response when called

• Turning one ear toward a sound

• Startling more easily

• Increased or louder vocalization

• Watching your face more closely

• Responding better when you are nearby

• Becoming anxious or withdrawn

Complete a behavioral hearing screening under calm, consistent conditions and save the results for comparison over time.

Share any concerns with your veterinarian, particularly if the change is sudden or accompanied by ear pain, discharge, head shaking, balance problems, or other neurological signs.

You can also help by approaching your pet within their visual field, waking them gently before touching, teaching hand signals, using predictable routines, and keeping them safely leashed or enclosed when recall may be unreliable.

These simple adaptations can reduce anxiety, prevent startling, and protect the human-animal bond.

Hearing Health Belongs in Preventive Veterinary Care

We check our pets’ eyes. We check their teeth. We listen to their hearts.

It is time we listened to their hearing, too.

A brief hearing screening can begin an important conversation between pet parents and veterinary teams. It can help distinguish a possible sensory change from a behavior problem and guide monitoring, environmental adaptations, owner education, and clinical referral.

Hearing loss may be hiding in plain sight. When we recognize it earlier, we can replace frustration with understanding and give animals the support they need to remain safe, confident, and connected.

Listen to Episode 49 of We’re All Ears: “Hearing Loss Is Hiding in Plain Sight: What 10,615 Pet Screenings Reveal.”

Because when we understand what animals hear, we better understand what they need.

Why Hearing Wellness Should Become a Standard Part of Every Pet's Health Check

For decades, veterinary wellness has focused on vision, dental health, heart function, mobility, and weight. Yet one of the most important senses an animal relies on every day has often been overlooked: hearing.

As the founder of Pet Acoustics and a Certified Sound Behaviorist™, I have spent more than 15 years studying how sound influences animal behavior, stress, communication, and wellbeing. Throughout that journey, one question continued to surface:

How many behavior problems are actually hearing problems?

That question led to the development of the Pet Acoustics Hearing Wellness Screening and, ultimately, to the publication of our peer-reviewed study, Hearing Wellness in Companion Animals, in the International Animal Health Journal.

What We Learned from Over 10,000 Hearing Screenings

Our study analyzed 10,615 behavioral hearing screenings performed by pet owners, veterinary professionals, and animal care organizations across 86 countries.

The findings were striking:

• 46.5% of animals showed reduced hearing in at least one frequency range.

• High-frequency hearing loss was the most common finding.

• Pets aged seven years and older demonstrated significantly more hearing impairment than younger animals.

• Dogs and cats showed remarkably similar patterns of age-related hearing decline.

While the screening is behavioral rather than diagnostic, the consistency of these results suggests that hearing loss is far more common than many of us realize.

Hearing Loss Often Looks Like a Behavior Problem

Animals rarely tell us they cannot hear.

Instead, owners notice that their pet:

• Doesn't come when called.

• Seems stubborn.

• Sleeps more deeply.

• Startles easily.

• Becomes anxious.

• Appears confused.

• Withdraws socially.

These changes are often attributed to aging or behavior when the underlying cause may be declining hearing.

Without screening, hearing loss can remain hidden for years.

Why Traditional Hearing Testing Isn't Enough

The gold standard for veterinary hearing evaluation is the Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BAER) test.

BAER provides objective diagnostic information, but it requires specialized equipment, trained personnel, and often sedation. As a result, it is generally reserved for referral hospitals and specific medical cases.

That leaves most companion animals with no routine hearing assessment at all.

A New Approach to Hearing Wellness

Behavioral hearing screening was designed to fill this gap.

Using species-specific sounds across low, mid, and high frequency ranges, the Pet Acoustics Hearing Wellness Screening can be completed in approximately two minutes on a smartphone or tablet.

The goal is not to diagnose hearing loss.

The goal is to identify animals whose responses suggest they may benefit from:

• closer monitoring,

• environmental modifications,

• communication adjustments,

• or referral for diagnostic testing when appropriate.

Just as blood pressure screening doesn't replace cardiac diagnostics, hearing screening provides an accessible first step toward better preventive care.

Hearing Influences More Than Communication

Hearing affects nearly every aspect of an animal's life.

It influences:

• emotional regulation,

• learning,

• confidence,

• environmental awareness,

• social interactions,

• safety,

• and the human-animal bond.

When hearing changes, behavior often changes with it.

Recognizing this relationship allows veterinarians, behaviorists, trainers, and owners to make more informed decisions and improve an animal's quality of life.

Looking Ahead

One of the most encouraging aspects of our research was the response from veterinary professionals.

Many clinics reported they currently have no formal hearing assessment protocol, yet expressed enthusiasm for incorporating hearing wellness into routine care.

As veterinary medicine continues to emphasize preventive healthcare, hearing deserves to stand alongside vision, dental health, and mobility as a routine wellness parameter.

Because hearing isn't simply another sense.

It shapes how animals experience the world around them.

And when we begin listening through the animal's ears, we often gain an entirely new understanding of their behavior, their wellbeing, and their needs.

Janet Marlow, M.A., Certified Sound Behaviorist™
Founder & CEO, Pet Acoustics, Inc.

This blog is based on the peer-reviewed publication "Hearing Wellness in Companion Animals: Observational Study of 10,615 Behavioural Hearing Screenings," published in the International Animal Health Journal.

THE CALM SHELTER INITIATIVE

What If a Shelter Could Sound Like a Home?
We're launching a pilot to bring species-specific sound therapy into shelter kennels — free — and we'd like a handful of shelters to help us prove it out.

Walk into almost any animal shelter and the first thing you notice isn't the animals. It's the sound. Barking that sets off more barking. Metal doors, hard floors, voices echoing down a concrete corridor. For the people who work there, it fades into background hum. For the dogs and cats living in it, it never does.

I've spent more than twenty-five years studying how companion animals actually hear — not how we assume they do. Dogs and cats register frequencies we can't, and they react to sound far more sharply than we tend to credit. A kennel that feels merely "busy" to a human can read as relentless to an animal whose hearing was built for a quieter world. That mismatch has a cost, and it shows up in the body: pacing, panting, withheld appetite, the kind of stress that makes an adoptable animal look like a difficult one.

Sound is the variable nobody adjusts

Shelters work tirelessly on the things they can control — cleanliness, enrichment, medical care, foster networks, adoption events. Sound is rarely on that list, not because it doesn't matter but because it has never come with a practical lever to pull. You can't ask a building full of stressed animals to be quieter.

That's the gap Biometric Sound Therapy is built to close. It isn't background music for the lobby, and it isn't white noise. It's sound engineered specifically for the hearing range and sensitivities of dogs and cats — tuned to settle the nervous system rather than simply mask the room. The goal is straightforward: lower the ambient stress load so the animals can rest, recover, and show up as themselves when an adopter walks by.

Introducing the Calm Shelter Initiative

The Calm Shelter Initiative is a pilot built to put that idea to the test. We're placing Biometric Sound Therapy in three to five shelters, at no cost, to study how it changes the day-to-day experience inside the kennels.

Deliberately, we're keeping the scope tight. One intervention, one question: does calmer sound make a measurable, observable difference for the animals and the staff who care for them? No upsell, no equipment to buy, no strings. We provide everything; participating shelters simply use it and tell us what they see.

Why now, and why a pilot

Because the right way to make a claim is to earn it. Rather than tell shelters what sound therapy will do for them, we'd rather a small group of partners put it to work in real conditions — with their animals, their floor, their honest read — and let the experience speak. A focused pilot lets us learn fast, document carefully, and build something other shelters can trust later.

If your shelter wants in

We're looking for a few committed partners for this first cohort. If easing the stress load on your animals — and the people who care for them — sounds worth a conversation, I'd love to hear from you. There's no cost to participate and no obligation beyond your willingness to use the therapy and share what you observe.

A quieter, calmer kennel isn't a luxury. For an animal waiting for a home, it might be the difference between being overlooked and being chosen. Let's find out together.

Janet Marlow

Founder & CEO, Pet Acoustics · Certified Sound Behaviorist™

The Hearing Health Evolution: Transforming Behavior & Veterinary Care
Hosted by Caroline Clark, Clinical Animal Behaviourist (PG Dip (AS) CABC), Author & CPD Provider

What if one of the most overlooked senses in veterinary medicine is the key to better behavior, calmer handling, and more accurate clinical insight?

In this special webinar for UK behaviourists and veterinarians, Caroline Clark hosts Janet Marlow to explore a new frontier in animal care: hearing health as a clinical standard.

📅 Recorded from the April 15th session for veterinary professionals across the UK.

https://youtu.be/uWbulmD_4Ic

What You’ll Learn:

• Why hearing has been historically overlooked in veterinary care

• How sound influences behavior, stress, and clinical outcomes

• The role of hearing screening as a new, billable wellness tool

• How a simple 2-minute assessment can provide meaningful behavioral insight

• Why creating a calming acoustic environment improves handling and diagnostics

This conversation brings together behavioral science and clinical application—offering a practical path forward for integrating hearing health into everyday veterinary workflows.

For professionals seeking to elevate patient care, reduce stress in clinical settings, and better understand behavior at its sensory root—this is where the evolution begins.

Learn more about hearing health innovation and sound-based care at Pet Acoustics.

#VeterinaryMedicine #AnimalBehavior #HearingHealth #PetWellness #VetMed #ClinicalPractice #FearFree #AnimalWelfare #SoundTherapy #VeterinaryInnovation

# What 318 Veterinary Clinics Told Us About Hearing Health — And What They Did Not Know They Were Saying

*By Janet Marlow, M.A., Certified Sound Behaviorist | Founder and CEO, Pet Acoustics*

---

Between August 2023 and April 2026, 318 veterinary clinics across 48 US states requested the Pet Acoustics+ free hearing screening kit for their practice. Every single one was fulfilled and shipped.

That number — 318 clinics, 48 states, all requesting a tool for something they had never been able to test before — tells one kind of story. But the data behind those requests tells a more important one.

---

## The Question We Asked

When clinics placed their request, we asked one straightforward question: what do you currently use to assess your patients' hearing?

The answers were a window into a gap that most of the profession has quietly lived with for years.

**256 of 318 clinics — over 80% — reported no hearing assessment product or protocol in place at all.**

Their answers ranged from candid to quietly revealing:

*"I don't have a product I use to test hearing in pets."* — Dr. William King, Frankfort Animal Clinic, KY

*"We do not currently have any testing options available."* — Hillary Cook, Animal Wellness Center

*"No comparable product in house."* — Erin Sutton, Shiloh Veterinary Hospital

*"We have not had need until now to use one."* — Alexsey Dobberstine, Humane Society of Dallas County

That last response is the one that stays with us. **We have not had need until now.** Not because hearing loss in their patients was rare. As our broader dataset of 10,615 screenings shows, 46.5% of dogs and cats have some degree of hearing impairment. The need was always there. What was missing was the tool — and the awareness that the tool was needed.

---

## What Clinics Were Using Instead

The remaining clinics described their current method. The most common responses:

- **A loud clap** — hands clapped sharply near the animal's head, watching for a flinch

- **Dropping a heavy object** — a book, a stainless steel bowl, something that makes impact noise

- **Visual startle test** — snapping fingers outside the visual field

*"I usually just clap my hands loudly to see if a pet hears it, or drop a heavy book."* — Dr. Erin P. Schulz, At Your Door Mobile Veterinary Care

*"Im guessing it works better than clapping."* — Ivy Gantt, Moon Veterinary Clinic

Only **4 clinics** mentioned BAER testing — the gold standard audiological assessment that requires specialist referral, specialized equipment, and in many cases sedation. BAER is excellent for confirming deafness. It is not a screening tool for the wellness visit. It was never designed to be.

The picture that emerges is straightforward: the most technologically sophisticated profession in pet care has been assessing one of the five primary senses with a hand clap.

This is not a criticism of veterinary practice. It is a description of a gap that existed because no accessible, validated alternative existed. Until now, there was nothing to use instead.

---

## What the Clinics Said When They Arrived

The enthusiasm in the requests was striking. Clinics were not filling out a routine form. They were responding to something they had been waiting for.

*"We are excited to try this product in our office for patients with suspected hearing loss."* — Lauren Newman, Sheltons Veterinary Hospital, NC

*"We have several clients a year who are interested in evaluating their pets' hearing. I think this would be a great way to evaluate it coupled with the in-clinic exam."* — Dr. Jaimie Wisnowski, Preiser Animal Hospital

*"Can't wait to try it out and see results in just one minute!"* — Dr. Carla Bender, Thousand Island Animal Hospital

*"Very cool. I am a hospice veterinarian and would love to see something like this used more as I constantly have clients mention their dogs' hearing loss."* — Dr. Tessa Brown, At Peace Home Veterinary Care

*"We have plenty of clients always asking if their pets can hear."* — Dr. Amy O'Malley, Warrenton Animal Clinic

*"I just acquired a deaf dog and this would be a great test for him and to show clients."* — Randall Ruble, Madera Animal Hospital

*"Yes, if it works well, it would be something we recommend to our clients."* — Dr. Robert R. Maza, Companion Animal Hospital

The demand was already there. Owners were already asking. Veterinarians already knew this was a gap — they just had no way to close it.

---

## 48 States. Every Practice Type.

The 318 clinics in our network represent the breadth of American veterinary practice:

- **General practices** from every region, from urban hospital groups to single-veterinarian rural clinics

- **Mobile and house-call practices** — 8 clinics whose model requires tools that travel

- **Emergency and specialty hospitals** — 9 referral and specialist centers

- **Shelters and humane societies** — 7 organizations, where hearing screening has direct implications for adoption placement and behavioral assessment

- **Hospice and end-of-life practices** — where hearing loss is among the most common and least-discussed quality-of-life factors

The top states by clinic count — Florida (32), Texas (29), Pennsylvania (18), California (17), North Carolina (16), New York (16), Michigan (15) — mirror the national distribution of veterinary practices. This is not a regional phenomenon. It is national.

---

## The Number That Matters Most

Of the 318 clinics, only 4 had any formal audiological testing capability. The rest were working with their hands and their instincts.

Meanwhile, our hearing dataset tells us that among the patients walking through those clinic doors:

- **46.5%** have some degree of hearing impairment

- **28.2%** have significant loss across all frequency bands

- **50.2%** have absent high-frequency response — the earliest and most sensitive marker of age-related decline

- The majority of those animals have **no hearing baseline on record**

The math is uncomfortable. A clinic seeing 20 patients a day is likely seeing 9 or 10 animals with undetected hearing loss — animals whose behavioral presentations, stress responses, and treatment plans may be influenced by a sensory factor that no one has measured.

---

## What the Screening Changes

The Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening takes under two minutes. It requires no equipment beyond a smartphone. It tests behavioral response across three frequency bands — low (125 Hz to 1 kHz), mid (1 kHz to 4 kHz), and high (4 kHz to 16+ kHz) — and generates a structured clinical PDF the veterinarian can enter into the patient record.

What it creates, for the first time, is a **baseline**.

A baseline changes everything about what happens next. It gives the veterinarian a comparison point for every future visit. It gives the owner language for what they have been observing. It gives the behavioral picture context — when a dog stops responding to commands or a cat begins startling at touch, the veterinarian can ask not only "what has changed behaviorally?" but "what has changed neurologically or sensorially?"

It also changes the conversation around hearing for good. Once a baseline exists, hearing becomes a variable — something tracked over time, something included in the longitudinal health record, something that informs decisions about environment, training, medication, and quality of life.

---

## The Profession Is Ready

The 318 clinics in our network did not need to be convinced that hearing health mattered. They requested the tool because they already knew their patients needed it and their clients were asking for it.

What they needed was something practical. Something that fit into a wellness visit. Something that did not require a referral, a specialist, or a sedated patient.

*"Clients will love it."* — Sara Fletcher, Greensboro Mobile Veterinary Housecalls

*"Interested in how this test will benefit our patients."* — Dr. Erin Downard, Country Brook Animal Hospital

*"This will be something very interesting to try."* — Janet Henkel, Tillamook Veterinary Hospital, OR

The interest is there. The need is documented. The gap between what is currently assessed at a wellness visit and what could be assessed — with a free, two-minute smartphone tool — is one that the profession is ready to close.

---

## For Veterinary Professionals

The Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening is free to download and free to use. It can be integrated into any wellness visit workflow without additional equipment, staff training, or scheduling time.

To request a free sample kit for your practice or to learn more about integrating hearing screening into your wellness protocol, visit **petacoustics.com** or contact us directly at janetmarlow@petacoustics.com.

Your patients' owners are already asking whether their pets can hear. Now there is an answer you can give them.

---

*Janet Marlow, M.A., is a Certified Sound Behaviorist, Founder and CEO of Pet Acoustics Inc., and the developer of the world's first behavioral digital hearing screening for companion animals. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals and is endorsed by the Fear Free veterinary initiative.*

# The Feline Medicalization Gap — And the Role Hearing Plays in Closing It

*By Janet Marlow, M.A., Certified Sound Behaviorist | Founder and CEO, Pet Acoustics*

---

There is a well-documented problem in companion animal health that the veterinary profession has been wrestling with for years. It goes by many names — the feline veterinary gap, the cat care deficit, the medicalization problem. It describes a single persistent reality: cats visit the vet far less frequently than dogs, and the consequences for feline health are significant.

The reasons cited most often are stress. The carrier. The car. The waiting room. The sounds and smells of a clinical environment that activate a cat's threat response before a single hand has been laid on them. Cat owners who love their animals deeply make the calculation — the distress of the visit seems to outweigh the benefit — and appointments get postponed, skipped, or never made at all.

We have spent four years collecting hearing data from cats around the world. What we found adds a dimension to this conversation that has never been measured before — and it suggests that the gap may be even wider than we thought.

---

## What We Found in 1,838 Cat Screenings

Between 2022 and 2026, 1,838 cats completed the Pet Acoustics+ behavioral hearing screening in 55 countries. The screening tests a cat's behavioral response to species-specific sounds across three frequency bands — low (125 Hz to 1 kHz), mid (1 kHz to 4 kHz), and high (4 kHz to 16+ kHz).

The findings were striking.

**59% of cats screened showed hearing impairment in at least one frequency band.** Nearly one in four — 22.6% — showed absent response across all three bands, indicating significant hearing loss. The average age of cats in our dataset was 8.0 years. These were not exclusively elderly animals. These were the cats sitting in living rooms across 55 countries, whose owners had no idea their hearing had changed.

The age-related picture tells its own story:

- **Ages 0–3:** 40.5% showing impairment

- **Ages 3–7:** consistent with mild age-related decline

- **Ages 7–12:** accelerating impairment

- **Ages 12+:** **74.2% showing hearing impairment**

Three out of four cats aged twelve and older — the cats most likely to be entering or already in their geriatric years, the cats whose owners most need to understand what they are experiencing — showed meaningful hearing loss. And 53.6% of cats in this age group who had never previously been screened had no hearing baseline on record.

---

## The Connection Nobody Is Making

Here is what the medicalization gap literature consistently identifies: the number one barrier to feline veterinary care is **stress**. And here is what our hearing data shows: **the stress a cat experiences on the way to the vet may be significantly amplified by hearing impairment that nobody has detected.**

A cat that cannot hear clearly is already navigating an unpredictable acoustic world. Every unfamiliar sound registers differently when you cannot localize it, cannot anticipate it, cannot process it within a hearing range that has narrowed without warning. The carrier. The car engine. The clinic waiting room. The hard surfaces, the ventilation systems, the sounds of other animals in distress — all of it arrives in the ears of an animal whose ability to interpret and contextualize sound has been quietly compromised.

The stress is not irrational. It is sensory. And it is invisible — because hearing is the one primary sense that no one has been measuring.

---

## The Gap Inside the Gap

Cats already have fewer veterinary visits than dogs. They arrive at those visits in higher states of stress. And they arrive with a hearing impairment that affects how they experience every sound in that clinical environment — an impairment that, in 59% of cases, has never been identified or addressed.

This is the gap inside the gap. The feline medicalization problem is not only about reluctant owners and stressful carriers. It is about the sensory reality of animals who are asked to navigate the most acoustically threatening environment of their week — the veterinary clinic — with hearing that has been diminishing in ways that no one has noticed or named.

79% of the 318 veterinary clinics we surveyed had no hearing assessment protocol in place. Hearing is assessed in virtually no standard wellness visit for cats. There is no baseline. There is no comparison over time. There is no language for what the cat is experiencing acoustically — only the behavioral presentation, which gets labeled as difficult, anxious, or reactive, without anyone asking what might be driving it from the inside.

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## Sound Therapy as a Bridge

This is where Pet Acoustics' work connects directly to the medicalization gap — not as a product pitch, but as a practical protocol.

The acoustic journey that a cat takes on the day of a veterinary visit begins long before the clinic door opens. It begins at home, when the carrier comes out. It continues in the car, through the sounds of traffic and engine vibration. It continues in the waiting room, where ambient clinical noise — ventilation, voices, the cries of other animals — activates a threat response that the veterinarian then inherits in the exam room.

Pet Acoustics+ species-specific sound therapy — music and soundscapes engineered within the auditory comfort range of cats — has been validated in published biometric studies showing measurable reductions in pulse rate, heart rate variability, and cortisol. It runs on any smartphone. It costs nothing to use. And it can be played continuously from the morning of the visit through every stage of the acoustic journey: at home, in the car, in the waiting room, in the carrier on the exam table.

For cats with hearing impairment — which, based on our data, is more than half of all cats — the benefit is not merely calming background sound. The low-frequency components and vibrational qualities of species-specific sound therapy provide sensory input that remains accessible even when higher-frequency response has declined. The acoustic environment becomes not a threat to be managed but a constant to be relied upon.

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## What Veterinarians Can Do Today

The feline medicalization gap will not close overnight. But there are two things every veterinarian can do immediately that address both the stress problem and the hearing problem simultaneously.

**First: Screen for hearing.** Add the Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening to every feline wellness visit. It takes under two minutes, requires no equipment, and runs on any smartphone. The result establishes a baseline — a clinical data point that no cat currently has, and that every cat deserves. When you can tell an owner that their 8-year-old cat has lost high-frequency response, you have given them language for what they have been observing. You have transformed a behavioral mystery into a sensory explanation. That changes the relationship between the owner and the animal, and it changes the owner's motivation to return.

**Second: Create a sound environment.** Recommend that owners play Pet Acoustics+ sound therapy starting the morning of every veterinary visit. Provide it in the waiting room. Have it playing in the exam room when the carrier is opened. The cat that arrives having been in a consistent, species-specific acoustic environment for two hours is not the same cat as the one that has spent two hours in silence and startle. The difference is measurable — and it changes what happens on the exam table.

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## The Data Makes the Case

1,838 cats. 55 countries. 59% with hearing impairment. 74.2% of cats aged 12 and over.

These are not small numbers. They are population-level findings that describe a dimension of feline health that has been invisible — not because it does not exist, but because no one had a tool to measure it.

The feline medicalization gap is real. The stress is real. The hearing loss is real. And the path from home to the exam room — the acoustic journey that cats take every time a veterinary visit is attempted — is a path that can be made measurably safer, calmer, and more navigable.

It starts with knowing what your cat can hear. And it starts with understanding that the most important part of a veterinary visit happens before the clinic door opens.

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## Take the First Step

Download Pet Acoustics+ free on iOS and Android. The hearing screening is free, takes under two minutes, and generates a clinical result you can share with your veterinarian.

**petacoustics.com/app**

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*Janet Marlow, M.A., is a Certified Sound Behaviorist, Founder and CEO of Pet Acoustics Inc., and the developer of the world's first behavioral digital hearing screening for companion animals. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals and is endorsed by the Fear Free veterinary initiative. She can be reached at janetmarlow@petacoustics.com.*

What 10,615 Pet Hearing Tests Revealed — And Why It Changes Everything

*By Janet Marlow, M.A., Certified Sound Behaviorist | Founder and CEO, Pet Acoustics*

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When we released the Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening, we expected pet parents to use it out of curiosity. What we did not expect was what the data would show us.

Over four years, between 2022 and 2026, the Pet Acoustics+ behavioral hearing screening was completed 10,615 times — by dog and cat owners in 86 countries, across every age group, every breed type, and every kind of household. It is, to our knowledge, the largest observational behavioral hearing dataset ever compiled for companion animals.

What we found stopped us in our tracks.

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Nearly Half of All Pets Showed Hearing Impairment

Of the 10,615 screenings completed, **46.5% of pets showed some degree of hearing impairment** in at least one frequency band. More than a quarter — 28.2% — showed significant loss across all three frequency bands tested.

We did not anticipate this prevalence. Hearing loss in companion animals is almost never discussed at a routine wellness visit. There is no standard screening. No baseline is ever established. Most pet owners have no idea their animal's hearing has changed — because the signs are so easy to misread.

A dog that stops coming when called. A cat that startles when you approach. A pet that seems to have become stubborn, anxious, or disconnected. These are not personality changes. In a significant proportion of cases, they are hearing changes — and they are going undetected.

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The Frequency Picture

The Pet Acoustics+ screening tests behavioral response across three frequency bands:

- **Low frequency** (125 Hz to 1 kHz): 82.1% clear response

- **Mid frequency** (1 kHz to 4 kHz): 76.4% clear response

- **High frequency** (4 kHz to 16+ kHz): only **49.8% clear response**

High-frequency hearing is the first to go. It is the most sensitive marker of age-related sensorineural decline — and it is the range that pets rely on most heavily for environmental awareness, communication, and behavioral cues. When high-frequency response is absent, a pet's experience of the world is fundamentally different from what their owner assumes.

More than half of all pets screened had lost meaningful response in the high-frequency range. Most of their owners had no idea.

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Age Matters — But Perhaps Not in the Way You Think

The age-related pattern in our data is clear and follows what we would expect from sensorineural decline:

- **Ages 0–3:** 40.5% showing some hearing impairment

- **Ages 3–7:** 27.5% impairment

- **Ages 7–12:** 31.5% impairment

- **Ages 12+:** 53.6% impairment

The senior and geriatric numbers are not surprising. What is striking is the 0–3 figure. **40.5% of young pets showed hearing impairment.** This is not age-related decline — it points toward congenital factors, breed predispositions, and early environmental exposures that we do not yet fully understand.

It also means that hearing loss is not something to watch for when a pet gets older. A baseline established at the first wellness visit could reveal impairment that has been present since birth — and that may be silently shaping that animal's behavior every single day.

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Dogs and Cats — More Similar Than You Might Expect

**Dogs:** 47.4% showed some hearing impairment

**Cats:** 42.3% showed some hearing impairment

The rates are comparable across species. Hearing loss is not a dog issue or a cat issue — it is a companion animal issue, and it affects both with roughly equal frequency.

For cats specifically, 53.6% of those aged 12 and older showed hearing impairment. Given that cats already visit the vet far less frequently than dogs, and that feline hearing loss is even harder for owners to detect, this finding has significant implications for how we approach feline wellness care.

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The Clinical Gap

We also surveyed the 318 veterinary clinics that participated in our free screening program. The result was sobering: **79% had no hearing assessment protocol in place.**

Hearing is the only primary sense not routinely evaluated at a wellness visit. We check eyes. We check teeth. We listen to hearts and lungs. We assess gait and body condition. But we do not check hearing — and yet nearly half of all companion animals appear to have some degree of impairment.

That gap is not a failure of veterinary care. It is a gap that has persisted because no scalable, practical, affordable screening tool existed. Until now.

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What This Means for Your Pet

If you have never screened your pet's hearing, now is the time. Not because something is necessarily wrong — but because you cannot know without a baseline.

The Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening takes under two minutes. It runs on any smartphone. It is completely free. It tests your pet's behavioral response to species-specific sounds across three frequency bands, and your results arrive as a clinical PDF you can share with your veterinarian.

Here is what a baseline tells you:

- Whether your pet's hearing is currently intact — a meaningful reassurance

- What your pet's hearing profile looks like at this point in their life

- A comparison point for every future screening, so you can track change over time rather than guessing

Hearing loss in companion animals is not painful. Pets with hearing impairment adapt, often remarkably well. But they adapt better — and live more comfortably — when the people who love them know what they are experiencing.

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The Bigger Picture

10,615 screenings across 86 countries. Four years of data. A finding that nearly half of companion animals may be navigating a world they can no longer hear clearly — without anyone knowing.

We built this tool because we believed hearing health in companion animals was underappreciated. The data has proven us right in ways we did not anticipate.

Hearing is not just about sound. It is a primary sensory pathway into behavior, emotion, stress, and wellbeing. When it changes — especially when it changes slowly and silently, as it so often does — the effects ripple into everything: how a pet relates to its home, to other animals, to its family, and to the veterinarians trying to keep it healthy.

This dataset is the beginning of something important. We are sharing it because we believe the veterinary community, the research community, and every pet owner deserves to know what we have found.

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Try the Free Hearing Screening

Download Pet Acoustics+ free on iOS and Android. The hearing screening is free, takes under two minutes, and requires nothing more than your smartphone.

**petacoustics.com/app**

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*Janet Marlow, M.A., is a Certified Sound Behaviorist, founder and CEO of Pet Acoustics Inc., and the developer of the world's first behavioral digital hearing screening for companion animals. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed international journals and is endorsed by the Fear Free veterinary initiative. She can be reached at janetmarlow@petacoustics.com.*

How to Scale Your Veterinary Service with Pet Acoustics

Scaling a modern veterinary service today isn’t just about adding exam rooms or hiring more staff.
It’s about serving more patients, with better outcomes, less stress, and a smoother workflow—without burning out your team.

At Pet Acoustics, we’ve spent more than two decades studying how sound affects animal physiology and behavior. What we now see in clinics around the world is simple:

Sound therapy and hearing screening can become a practical growth tool—not just a comfort feature.

Here’s how veterinary teams are using Pet Acoustics to scale care, efficiency, and client trust.

1. Scale Calm Across Your Entire Clinic—Not Just One Room

One of the biggest operational bottlenecks in a growing practice is environmental stress.

Anxious pets slow everything down:

• longer handling time

• more staff needed

• increased risk of injury

• delayed diagnostics

Pet Acoustics allows you to introduce species-specific sound therapy throughout your clinic—exam rooms, treatment areas, kennels, and recovery spaces.

Because the music is composed within the hearing ranges of dogs and cats (not human music simply re-branded), clinics use it to create consistent emotional regulation across the entire facility.

When animals settle faster:

• appointments stay on schedule

• staff fatigue drops

• handling becomes safer

• exam flow becomes predictable

That predictability is one of the first real steps toward scaling.

2. Add a New, Scalable Clinical Service: Hearing Screening

Hearing health remains one of the most under-screened areas in companion animal medicine.

Pet Acoustics enables clinics to offer a simple, non-invasive digital hearing screening for dogs and cats—appropriate for:

• wellness exams

• senior care programs

• behavioral consults

• pre-anesthetic assessments

This creates a new clinical touchpoint that:

• elevates your standard of care

• differentiates your clinic

• and opens meaningful conversations with pet parents about sensory health

Importantly, hearing screening integrates easily into existing appointments—no specialized rooms or lengthy training required.

For practices looking to scale revenue ethically and scientifically, this is a high-value, low-disruption service addition.

3. Support Fear-Free and Low-Stress Handling at Scale

Many clinics already follow the principles promoted by Fear Free.

The challenge is consistency.

Training protocols are only scalable if the environment itself supports regulation.

Clinics use Pet Acoustics as an environmental support layer that helps reinforce:

• reduced startle responses

• calmer vocalization

• smoother transitions between spaces

In short, sound becomes part of your behavioral infrastructure—helping Fear-Free handling work clinic-wide, not just in select appointments.

4. Extend Care Beyond Your Building

Scaling today often means reaching clients outside the physical clinic:

• house-call practices

• mobile veterinarians

• tele-advice and virtual consults

Pet Acoustics supports this model through app-based delivery and pre-loaded speakers that allow pet parents to continue the same sound therapy used in-clinic—at home, during transport, and before visits.

For mobile and hybrid practices, this creates:

• continuity of care

• stronger compliance

• and improved pre-visit emotional regulation

Clinics that recommend sound therapy as part of pre-appointment preparation frequently report:

• easier arrivals

• faster examinations

• and less escalation during handling.

That is real scalability for distributed veterinary services.

5. Strengthen Client Trust—and Retention

Today’s pet parents are deeply engaged in preventive care.

When you introduce:

• hearing screening

• sensory health

• and non-pharmaceutical stress support

you elevate your role from problem-solver to long-term wellness partner.

Clients appreciate having:

• measurable insight into hearing health

• and practical tools they can use at home to support visits, recovery, and daily well-being.

Clinics using Pet Acoustics as part of their client education consistently see:

• higher follow-through

• improved satisfaction

• and stronger loyalty over time.

Retention is one of the most powerful drivers of sustainable growth.

6. Protect Your Most Valuable Asset: Your Team

Scaling a veterinary practice without addressing staff stress simply shifts the bottleneck.

High arousal environments contribute to:

• emotional fatigue

• compassion stress

• higher turnover

By reducing baseline animal anxiety across the clinic, sound therapy supports:

• safer handling

• fewer reactive events

• and calmer workdays for clinicians and technicians alike.

A calmer clinical environment is not just better medicine—it is a retention strategy.

The Bottom Line

Scaling your veterinary service today requires more than expanding your physical footprint.

It requires:

• scalable behavioral support

• modern preventive screening

• seamless integration into workflow

• and tools that extend care beyond your walls.

Pet Acoustics provides a scientifically grounded way to integrate:
sensory health, behavioral regulation, and hearing care into everyday veterinary practice—without adding operational burden.

For clinics looking to grow sustainably, this is where calm becomes capacity.

Feline Hearing Loss: What Every Cat Parent Should Know — and What You Can Do About It

Hearing loss in cats is far more common than most pet parents realize—and because cats are exceptionally good at adapting, it often goes unnoticed.

As a lifelong animal sound researcher and the founder of Pet Acoustics Inc., I speak with many loving cat families who are surprised to learn that changes in hearing can quietly influence behavior, stress levels, and overall quality of life.

Here’s what every cat parent should know—and what you can do right now to help.

Yes—Cats Can Lose Their Hearing

Cats can experience partial or complete hearing loss at any age, but it becomes increasingly common as they grow older.

Some of the most common contributors include:

• natural age-related degeneration

• chronic or recurring ear infections

• inflammation or injury within the ear

• exposure to loud or sudden noises

• certain medications that can affect the auditory system

Unlike many animals, cats often compensate extremely well. They rely heavily on vision, scent, vibration, and memory.
This means hearing loss may develop quietly—sometimes over years—without obvious signs.

The Subtle Signs of Feline Hearing Loss

Many early signs are behavioral rather than physical.

You may notice that your cat:

• no longer responds to familiar sounds (your voice, a treat bag, or another pet)

• vocalizes more loudly or differently, especially at night

• startles easily when approached

• becomes more withdrawn or hides more often

• seems sensitive to touch or sudden movement

These changes are often mistaken for aging or anxiety.
In reality, altered hearing can change how safe your cat feels in their environment.

Why Hearing Loss Can Increase Stress in Cats

Hearing is one of a cat’s primary early-warning systems.

When hearing changes, your cat may:

• lose important environmental cues

• misinterpret sudden touch or movement as a threat

• feel less able to predict what is happening around them

This can create a persistent, low-level stress response—even in a calm and loving home.

Over time, that stress may contribute to:

• litter box challenges

• changes in social behavior

• disrupted sleep

• increased irritability or fear responses

Hearing loss is not only a sensory change—it is also a nervous system change.

What You Should Do First as a Cat Parent

If you suspect your cat’s hearing may be changing, the most important first step is a veterinary exam.

Your veterinarian can check for treatable causes such as infection, inflammation, wax buildup, or obstruction.

Even when hearing loss is age-related and not reversible, knowing your cat’s hearing status helps guide how you support them emotionally and physically at home.

The World’s First Digital Hearing Test for Cats and Dogs

One of the most common questions I hear from pet parents is:

“How can I know if my cat is really hearing differently?”

Today, there is finally a practical tool designed to help answer that question.

The world’s first digital hearing test for cats and dogs—designed for use at home or during veterinary exams—is available through the Pet Acoustics+ App, created by Pet Acoustics Inc.

This simple, non-invasive screening tool helps pet parents and veterinary teams better understand how an individual animal perceives sound—so care decisions, handling, and sensory support can be better tailored to the patient.

Hearing awareness is becoming an essential part of modern, low-stress care.

Create a Hearing-Friendly Home

Small adjustments can make a powerful difference for a cat with hearing changes.

Focus on:

• keeping furniture and layout consistent

• entering your cat’s visual field before touching them

• avoiding sudden approaches from behind

• using gentle floor taps or vibration to announce your presence

• maintaining predictable daily routines

These simple habits help reduce startle responses and rebuild a sense of environmental safety.

How Sound Can Still Support a Cat With Hearing Loss

This often surprises people—but sound can still play a valuable role, even when hearing is reduced.

Many cats with partial hearing loss can still perceive:

• certain low- and mid-frequency ranges

• rhythm and timing patterns

• vibration through floors and resting surfaces

The key is that the sound must be created for the feline auditory system.

Generic human music is not designed around how cats hear.

Species-specific sound therapy is composed using acoustic structures that align with feline perception—supporting calmer nervous system responses during rest, recovery, and everyday transitions.

For cats with hearing changes, sound should always be:

• played softly

• consistent rather than sudden

• used as a background support—not stimulation

The Pet Acoustics+ App — Supporting Cats and Families Worldwide

Pet Acoustics+ App

Today, feline hearing-aware sound care is available to cat parents around the world through the Pet Acoustics+ App.

The app allows families and veterinary teams to:

• access calming sound therapy created specifically for the feline auditory system

• support emotional regulation during transitions, recovery, and environmental change

• use the digital pet hearing screening tool to better understand how their cat hears

The Pet Acoustics+ App is available worldwide on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, making hearing-informed, species-specific sound care accessible wherever your cat feels safest—most often, at home.

Why Hearing Awareness Matters More Than Ever

Many behavior concerns in cats are addressed without ever considering hearing.

But when a cat:

• startles easily

• becomes withdrawn

• vocalizes excessively

• avoids handling

the sensory system and the nervous system are often closely involved.

Understanding how your cat hears allows you to interpret behavior more accurately—and respond with compassion rather than frustration.

A Gentle Reminder

As both a cat parent and a sound behaviorist, I want you to know this:

Hearing loss does not take away your cat’s ability to enjoy life, connection, or comfort.

But failing to recognize hearing changes can quietly increase stress and misunderstanding.

With awareness, a hearing-friendly home, gentle sensory support, and tools such as digital hearing screening and species-specific sound therapy, cats with hearing changes can continue to live confident, calm, and emotionally balanced lives.

Your cat is still listening—
just in a different way.

See our research on Feline Hearing in our published research in the International Animal Health Journal