The very concept of "ultrasound" is a human-centric prejudice: For dogs and cats, the higher frequencies we consider to be ultrasound are just part of their normal continuum of hearing. Our household pets can be left with an unconsidered residual.
Meant to appeal to human buyers, consumer electronics eliminate only the high-pitched noise that we hear. To them what we call "ultrasound" is just sound, but our gadgets aren't designed with that in mind. In reality, adults may only hear half of that range, as age reduces our sensitivity to high pitches.īut dogs can hear sounds up to 45,000Hz and cats up to 64,000Hz. Humans nominally hear sound that ranges in frequency from the lowest bass around 20Hz, or cycles per second, up to the highest, tingling treble near 20,000Hz.
"So the dog is going crazy and the owner doesn't know why."
"Many dogs are afraid of smoke alarms," she says. Katherine Houpt, an environmental factors expert at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, says pets routinely respond to sound above the frequencies humans can hear, called ultrasound. "But the garbage truck going by? That's a different story." Ultrasound: The unheard screechĭr. "I recently got a new dishwasher and it's really quiet - my dogs don't react to it at all," she says. They hear everything we do, plus much more. Sheila Carrera-Justiz, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, says that our pets' sense of hearing makes the world a far different place for them than for you and me. Have we built them an unintended hell?ĭr. You can fix a beeping smoke detector quickly by changing the battery, but it might also be emitting a constant high-pitched noise that only your dog can perceive. Their senses are tuned differently than our own and may detect a cacophony of noise and strobe effects that we don't, particularly as we fill our homes with technology. Few of us would put up with a TV that emits an annoying whine or a light bulb that flickers, but for our pets, that may the world around them.
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