Wagnific: A Review of the Product and Its Marketing

Is Wagnific a scam? If you came here because of issues around being overcharged, check out the Better Business Bureau’s report on them.

I’m here to talk about whether the music is what they say it is and does what they say it does.

This new music-for-dogs product has come out with some extreme claims. Its marketing page states it can:

• Alleviate anxiety
• Minimize barking
• Control aggression
• Boost immune system and overall health
• Improve sleep
• Reduce noise sensitivity

Wow, it does it all! Maybe it cures cancer, too?

Their page is like a bingo card of typical BS about sound products for dogs. Their descriptions include buzzwords like “natural frequencies,” “resonance,” “mimicking resting heart rate,” and most important, “natural.” But first let’s talk about the music itself. What’s it like?

Wagnific’s Music

I took one for the team and paid my $19 and endured a subsequent flood of upselling emails from Wagnific, not to mention that I listened to and analyzed the music.

This music is all likely generated electronically. There are possible exceptions in a couple of pieces (with acoustic guitar or a sound-alike), but most or all of the sounds are not created by acoustic instruments.

To convey what much of this music sounds like, I need to tell you about synth pads. These are background washes of sound, usually big chords, that are generated by a synthesizer. Here’s a quick example of a pad with a good demonstration of its function. Synth pads have been popular in dog music for a while, I believe because they add a richness that humans enjoy and can also provide an ultra-slow harmonic progression that conveys calm to some people (and makes others want to climb the walls). Here’s a piece of music that is based entirely on pads. It’s important to note, though, that dogs don’t hear as well in the lower ranges that pads usually include, so they probably do not hear the richness and depth that we do. (In case you haven’t realized, the target audience for “calming music for dogs” is actually humans.)

On the access page are seven ten-minute pieces, one to be played each day for their “7-Day Nervous System Healing.” In addition, they include four bonus tracks to: “ease separation anxiety,” “calm your dog during thunderstorms, fireworks, and other loud noise events,” “soften whining and barking,” and to support “recovery and relaxation during illness or after veterinary procedures.”

Of these eleven pieces, four are mainly synth pad and nature sounds, three have piano (or a piano-like sound) with heavy use of synth pad, two are mainly acoustic guitar (but probably synthesized), one is a very loud and dense pad-heavy piece with some moving inner parts that are hard to hear, and one is a synth pad with percussion and some odd high frequencies that might be trying to mimic insect (nature?) sounds. Ironically, this droning buzz would probably be the part that dogs heard best.

This music is nothing to write home about. The pieces sound like off-the-shelf tracks you can buy on a site like Pond5. To hear similar pieces, search YouTube for music with the keywords, “New Age,” “Meditation,” Relaxation,” “Yoga,” or “Ambient.”

So, let’s see if this very ordinary music lives up to the odd and extreme claims.

We Use “Special” Frequencies!

This is a popular talking point with music-for-dogs purveyors, and Wagnific’s version is particularly silly. Here’s a quote from the “Science” section of the front page of their site.

“Natural Frequencies: Specific range of frequencies between 432Hz and 639Hz. These are chosen because they resonate closely with the natural frequencies found in the body, promoting harmony and balance.”

OK, first off, whose body? Natural frequencies relate to body parts or whole bodies, and dogs have one of the widest varieties of sizes of any mammal on the planet. I would love for Wagnific to tell me which body parts (on which dogs) resonate to those frequencies. There are a few studies on the natural frequencies of human bones and organs, but a quick look through Google Scholar didn’t turn up any for dogs, although there were some on other mechanical properties of bones in dogs.

And as far as “promoting harmony and balance,” I have a whole post written on the absurdity of the claims about external sounds resonating in the bodies of humans or dogs and having magic effects.

Here are the frequencies they mention in the marketing point I quoted above. For your listening pleasure, I generated a sine wave with five seconds of each. Listen to hear the magic!

They Got the Pseudoscience Wrong

I do know why they picked those frequencies. The frequencies 432 and 639 Hz are both popular in pseudoscience; just look them up on YouTube. They are each purported to have magical qualities. But remember, each of them is just one tone. Wagnific didn’t even get the pseudoscience right. Note that they said “between” those two frequencies. They counted on people recognizing the numbers as having some purported glamor. But they simply made them into boundaries of a “range” of frequencies, instead of exact frequencies with supposed individual characteristics, as is usually claimed.

And you know what’s funny? This frequency “range” is not in dogs’ optimal hearing range, which centers on 8,000 Hz. It’s pretty low for dogs.

But wait, there’s more! On the paid access page to the music, in answer to an FAQ question about whether senior dogs can hear the music, they say, “Even dogs with mild hearing loss can often still detect the specific frequencies we use (432Hz and 528Hz).” So, which is it, folks? Is it a range, or is it those “specific” frequencies? Not to mention—which frequencies? The second one is different on this page. It (528 Hz) is yet another frequency popular in pseudoscience.

You can always tell when someone who doesn’t understand them uses the word “frequencies.”

Nevertheless, does Wagnific’s music include frequencies between 432 and 639 Hz as they claim? Or the individual frequencies of 432 and 528 Hz? The second claim is easy to check. No. Those frequencies didn’t pop out in the spectral analysis except in one piece. As for the “range” claim—yes, frequencies in that range are present. But they’re in a central range for almost all human vocal and instrumental music, and were more prominent in several random “meditation” tracks I checked from other sources.

If you think I’m writing an awful lot about this—remember Brandolini’s Law, or the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle. And I haven’t even begun to cover all the nonsense from this company!

Music That Matches Heart Rate (Except They Got It Wrong)

Again, Wagnific wins last place.

Now, it’s a common claim that the tempo of some music matches the resting heart rate and that there are benefits to this (you can look up “entrainment”). And in the research about the effect of music on humans, that’s one of the few things that has some evidence behind it. But the many papers have varied results.

So, the purveyors of dog music like to mention synchronization or entrainment between music tempo and heart rate. However, it appears that Wagnific didn’t bother to look up information about dogs’ heart rates.

Their claim:

“Precise Beats Per Minute: (60–80 BPM) Tunes set to a tempo of 60–80 beats per minute (BPM), mimicking the calming effect of a dog’s resting heart rate, leading to physiological changes that promote obedience and focus.”

Except 60–80 bpm is NOT the dog’s resting heart rate. Wagnific used the numbers for human resting heart rates! The Merck veterinary manual states the range of dogs’ resting heart rates as 70–120 beats per minute.

So, even though it’s the wrong range, is Wagnific’s music paced at 60–80 beats per minute as they say it is? Most of it isn’t. Out of the eleven pieces I analyzed, just four had an audible beat in that range. The majority (six) didn’t have much of a beat at all; they were just washes of different synth pads without a lot of rhythm. Some of those had an implied beat around 40 bpm. I say “implied” because it’s hard to hear. One had a beat that was tinkered with to where it was irregular (rubato). Most of the pieces have the OPPOSITE of “precise beats per minute.” You would be hard put to even tap out a rhythm when you heard those.

Naturalistic Fallacy

They claim: “Wagnific Is A Natural, Affordable and More Effective Solution For Improving Behavior.”

More effective than what? They say it’s more effective than “dominance training,” “private trainers,” “bark collars,” and “treat training.” The problem with treat training, by the way, per Wagnific, is that it “requires constant bribing with no lasting results. The moment treats disappear, so does the good behavior.” (More critique from Wagnific about training is in “Amusing and Tragic Odds and Ends” below.)

There is a lot of irony here, starting with the fact that they don’t understand how positive reinforcement-based training works. But more to the point: music is not “natural.” Music is human artistry (since it’s not relevant to their claims, I’m omitting things like birdsong and the philosophy of some avant-garde composers). And virtually any music we listen to at home these days is made of ones and zeros stored in computer memory, played over a digital device. Electronic music that includes no recorded actual instruments is the least “natural” of all. I’m not putting down synthesized music. People can do amazingly artistic things with it. But “natural” it ain’t.

Buzzword Gobbledygook

On the access page to their magic music, along with the creepy AI art of a golden retriever in different life periods, they have blurbs for the different pieces. Every one of them is a mishmash of buzzwords. Here’s just one of them.

“Day 4: Harmonic Trust – Limbic Balance
Harmonic progressions strengthen neurological trust pathways, reinforcing obedience behaviors as your dog’s nervous system adapts to sustained relaxation.”

Here’s my commentary.

• “Harmonic trust”: This is not a thing. Limbic balance is, but it’s an extreme claim that a ten-minute piece of bargain-basement synthesized music could help with that.
• “Harmonic progressions”: Almost all music has harmonic progressions. “Happy Birthday” has harmonic progressions. This is not a talking point. It’s like saying someone’s special recipe soup has liquid in it.
• “Neurological trust pathways”: The only hits you’ll get on searching that term are a handful on pseudoscience sites.
• “Reinforcing obedience behaviors”: OBEDIENCE BEHAVIORS?!? Well, that’s certainly convenient.

I’m not arguing that teaching and encouraging dogs to relax is a bad or ineffective thing. Just that Wagnific’s jargon is all mixed up (and music is not very effective at relaxing dogs).

The descriptions of their pieces are all like this: mixtures of buzz words and terms from music, neuroscience, physics, or ethology, usually used incorrectly.

In their FAQ, they state that “Our melodies are specifically engineered based on canine neurology research and clinical testing, not human music preferences.” It’s just hard to believe, since they refer to the tempo of the human heart rate and state a focus on frequencies that humans hear better than dogs. Anyone who feels like asking them about the clinical testing part, feel free. They have a support email on their website.

Amusing and Tragic Odds and Ends

We have to laugh so we don’t cry, right? Products like these prevent pet owners from finding valid help for the problems their dog or their family is enduring. They can prolong suffering.

• Although there is mild evidence that “classical” music can relax dogs in some situations, specially designed dog music has not been found to do so (Lindig et al., 2020), and has failed in eight studies so far. And there is not ANY scientific support for the idea that music can address specific issues such as separation anxiety or sound sensitivity. This is a trend that was started by other “music for dogs” companies: different playlists to address dogs’ different mental, behavioral, and physical conditions. It is nonsense, and it preys upon the desperation of people who are trying to help their troubled, scared, old, or painful dogs.
• The birdsong found in many of the clips would have triggered some sound-phobic dogs, including my Zani, before her mental health improved with meds and training (not music).
• Wagnific runs an ad on Instagram that compares aspects of training a reactive dog with a trainer (60 days, $2400 dollars, on meds, still barking) and buying their product (7 days, responds to “commands” again, no destruction, no meds, $19). Note the appeal to the naturalistic fallacy with the “no meds” line.
• They’ve run an ad on Facebook with another outlandish claim, and said their product was backed by science. I responded in the comments, asking for a link to the study supporting it but got no response.
• The separation anxiety music includes not only running water, but loud splashing. (?)
• The sound sensitivity music is the most lively and busy of all the clips, with synthesized maracas and other percussion including pseudo handclaps. Maybe they are going for masking? It’s strange after all the soft and mooshy pieces.
• Quote from the music access page: “These melodies may sound simple, but they’re backed by years of love, research, and testing.” (Emphasis mine.) Their website was registered in 2024, and that’s also the date of establishment listed on the Better Business Bureau page. BBB isn’t usually very valuable, but the Wagnific entry is worth a look. Check out the complaints.

About Wagnific

The business appears to have existed for two-plus years, and they started selling their product in the second year (or possibly the first year). They list a street address in Phoenix, AZ, but it is a box at a UPS store, so they likely do not have a brick-and-mortar office. I couldn’t find them registered in the state of Arizona on any of the government business listings. (If anyone does, please let me know and I’ll correct this.) This page lists the business name as available for use/registry in Arizona.

Extraordinary Claims

So, is Wagnific a scam? It has many of the hallmarks. They sure say a lot of things that aren’t true, and they use language in disingenuous ways. They do not come off as a company that is in it for the love of dogs, whatever they claim.

Carl Sagan (standing on the shoulders of other giants who said similar things) famously said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But these claims by Wagnific are beyond extraordinary; they are ridiculous. They can’t even get their story straight.

Comments

Regarding comments: if your dog is helped by Wagnific or any dog music, I’m glad for you. But I won’t publish anecdotal comments about that. My stance is that it’s irresponsible to lead people toward such things even if they “worked for you.” There is plenty of evidence-based information out there about helping dogs with behavior problems. And there are lots of other places you can write about the wonders of music for dogs. Not here.

Copyright 2026 Eileen Anderson

Reference

Lindig, A. M., McGreevy, P. D., & Crean, A. J. (2020). Musical dogs: A review of the influence of auditory enrichment on canine health and behavior. Animals, 10(1), 127.

Images

Eurorack modular synthesizer is from Wikimedia Commons via user Paul Anthony under this license

88-key keyboard is from Wikimedia Commons via user Guypeter4 under this license (I altered it by cropping it from a more extensive graphic and adding the red box)

Harmonic progression is from Wikimedia Commons via user Hyacinth. It requires no license because, according to Wikimedia Commons, “a chord progression is a musical concept or technique, which is considered too simple to be eligible for copyright protection, or which consists only of technique, with no original creative input.”

The photo of Angus and Jem kindly provided by and copyright Blanche Axton.