Dog And Owner Are In Car As Dog’s Favorite Song Comes On — Neither Of Them Can Contain Their Excitement

Jan 13, 2021

On a road trip back in 2017, YouTube user Annie put on Queen's "We Are The Champions." Lola, the Shiloh shepherd pup, couldn't pass up a moment to sing her favorite song, and so even though she doesn't seem to know the lyrics, this enthusiastic dog belts out the chorus. The dog-human duet makes for an incredible video.

The video begins normally enough. According to the original YouTube video’s description, Annie and her Shiloh shepherd were on a road trip when Queen’s iconic single “We Are The Champions” came on. Annie, who seems to be a huge Queen fan, immediately starts lip-syncing along with Freddie Mercury’s triumphant lyrics. Meanwhile, Lola seems like she’s trying to sleep in the back. With her head down and her eyes shut, she seems unphased by the loud music. That is, well, until the chorus. As the song crescendos and Mercury sings “I've had my share of sand / Kicked in my face / But I've come through / And we mean to go on and on and on and on,” Lola lifts her head and starts singing!

“We are the champions, my friends / And we'll keep on fighting till the end,” blares out over Annie’s car stereo and Lola does her best to sing along. Granted, Lola is a dog and doesn’t speak English, so her version sounds more like a pained mix of Oohs and Ahhs. Nevertheless, it’s pretty amazing that she seems to react to the music by singing.

Throughout the 2-minute video, Lola continues to sing off and on, making for a hilarious couple of minutes. And suffice it to say that viewers agree.

“I love this,” a user named Rubs commented. “I had a dog just like this that would basically try to talk to me, especially when she got excited (like when I return home) she would sing like crazy.”

Other commenters debated over whether the music was too loud for the dog’s sensitive ears, but most agreed that A) the dog didn’t seem to be in pain and B) that the music only seemed loud because it was recorded by the dashcam that was sitting right above the speakers. With that said, the question remains: Why did Lola start “singing” in the first place? And do animals understand music?

On the one hand, the obvious answer seems to be no. Culture is, after all, what separates humans from animals. But then again, we have to remember that animals do, by our definition, make music. Think of songbirds, for example. In fact, there’s an entire field dedicated to animal musicology — zoomusicology. In recent years, some fascinating studies have come out of this field, including a 2012 study from researchers at Colorado State University that explored how dogs would react to music. Researchers observed the behavior — their activity levels, the sounds they made, and whether their bodies were shaking — of 117 dogs living in a dog shelter. Scientists then played a variety of music from heavy metal (poor dogs) to classical music. They monitored the dogs when no music was playing as well. And the results are fascinating.

According to this study, the dogs slept better when classical music was playing, and researchers hypothesized that it helped the canines relax. But when researchers played heavy metal, the dogs reacted poorly, shaking and showing signs of nervousness.

“These results are consistent with human studies, which have suggested that music can reduce agitation, promote sleep, improve mood, and lower stress and anxiety,” the researchers wrote, according to Mental Floss.

Deborah Wells, a psychologist at Queens University in Belfast, says something similar in an article for The American Kennel Club (AKC).

“It is well established that music can influence our moods,” Wells says. “Classical music, for example, can help to reduce levels of stress, whilst grunge music can promote hostility, sadness, tension, and fatigue. It is now believed that dogs may be as discerning as humans when it comes to musical preference.”

Furthermore, the AKC article argues that music triggers something deep in a dog’s genetic code related to howling. Wolves, the dog’s ancestor, howl to communicate with each other and to establish group identity. When you play music, your dog may associate it with howling, and thus it makes sense that they would howl back just like Lola does in this video.

Dogs, according to research the AKC cites, also have a sense of pitch, which again explains why they might howl in response to music. When Lola joins in to sing in the video below, she seems to change pitch over and over. And so perhaps she’s just trying to match the pitch of the song just like she would match the pitch of her pack’s howls. 

In the same article, they also bust the myth that these dogs are howling because they’re in pain from the loud music. If the dogs were actually in pain, the article argues, then they would just run away from the sound, hide, or cover their heads with their paws. Lola, as you’ll see in the video below, doesn’t do any of those things. And so it seems clear that the dogs in these singing videos are howling for another reason. But one thing is for sure — these videos are adorable.
 

Luckily, there’s no shortage of dogs singing on YouTube. There’s even another video that features Lola! In 2018, Annie uploaded “Lola Sings Again - This time with a backup.” The short clip features Lola and her friend Happy, both Shiloh shepherds, as they sing along to the Avett Brothers track “Paranoia in B Flat Major.”

The video is just as hilarious as the original. Of course, Lola is the experienced one, so she takes the lead and begins howling along to the folk song. Throughout the video, Happy gives a couple of short howls, but she mostly just looks at Lola with a confused expression that seems to say “Why in the world are you howling?”

In any case, these videos of Lola are funny, adorable, and fascinating — all at the same time. Take a look at the video below and judge for yourself.

What do you think of Lola’s singing voice? Why do you think she tries to “sing” along? Let us know — and be sure to pass this story and video on to your friends and family members!