Senior Dog Finds Strength To Keep Fighting Illness Through Mom's Piano Playing

Every musician dreams of performing in front of an appreciative audience. Pianist and vocalist Kara Baldus Mehrmann was lucky enough to find the perfect receptive audience in an unexpected place: her own home, in the form of Bradford, her 13-year-old rescue dog. While it's true that dogs in general are one of the animals that like music (though loud music is one of the sounds that are painful for dogs), Bradford seems to savor music to an extreme degree. 

He adores sitting on Baldus Mehrmann's lap while she's playing the piano, sometimes closing his eyes, with a look of pure bliss on his adorably fuzzy face. "Bradford really loves to flop his head on my chest at the end of a song. It's so cute," she told the Dodo in a video that's been viewed more than 186,000 times.

"That is the sweetest thing I've ever seen. Bradford closing his eyes and soaking in the music, then snuggling his head back against you. That has to be a great feeling," one viewer of the YouTube video wrote. "It will never cease to amaze me how often dogs just seem to magically end up with the ideal owner," another commented. Indeed, Baldus Mehrmann's piano playing has done more than simply entertain Bradford — it might have helped to save his life.

In 2024, Bradford was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive form of blood cancer. After an emergency splenectomy, the vet estimated that the little dog had just two to six months to live. That was more than a year ago. "I played piano to help comfort Bradford throughout his cancer treatment. There's something so healing about music. It really gave him the courage to keep going," Baldus Mehrmann said in the Dodo video. "He's a miracle dog."

"Music, love and a good family is the perfect match for any being both animals and humans. Go Bradford show everyone that life is for living. Xx," one viewer wrote. Some individuals shared stories of their own dogs with cancer — and even human cancer patients — who were also helped by music. It's long been known that music can help a human cancer patient reduce stress and boost mood, so it shouldn't be surprising to learn that music can help soothe our canine counterparts as well. One commenter summed it up: "Actually it's both music and love that beat cancer ... Ok, ok the cancer treatment did help as well."

Want to read about other dogs who appreciate music? This Dalmatian sings right along with a street performer in New York's Central Park, and the video of their unusual duet delivers all the warm fuzzies.