Our Story
Belle: The Inspiration Behind the Product Idea
The story of this remarkable, patented new invention began with a Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier named Belle, with Lisa and a violent thunderstorm.
One summer night Belle was so traumatized by loud claps of thunder that Lisa was unable to console her. In a desperate attempt to bring relief to her anxiety-stricken dog, Lisa got down on the floor with Belle, placed the MP3 headphones in her ears, and played a soothing music selection. Within minutes, Belle became less agitated and remained calm for the duration of the storm.
Knowing how much her friend Kris Baggelaar knew about animal behavior, Lisa recalled the story to her. Kris immediately agreed with Lisa that a collar with soothing music would be a wonderful solution for dogs suffering from auditory phobias.
Music Mutz was born.
Our Founding Team
Lisa Caputo, Founder/Owner conceived the revolutionary concept for an invention to integrate the soothing power of music within a mobile device “to go wherever the dog goes.”
A former veterinarian technician at North Shore Animal League, Port Washington, NY, Lisa was passionate about animals.
Through her affiliation with the Inventors Workshop in Santa Barbara, California, Lisa patented her invention. Sadly, Lisa was not able to continue her work with Music Mutz due to a serious illness; however, her partner Kris continued to make their mutual dream a reality, turning Lisa’s original concept into a highly effective mature product.
Kris Baggelaar, Founder/Owner was born into a family with a Collie named Heidi Ho, who became her loyal companion and protector and laid the foundation for a lifelong love of all animals, especially dogs. She spent decades raising puppies for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind (GDF), fostering dogs, and volunteering in many other ways, including using her teaching experience to conduct educational presentations.
The concept of exposing anxious dogs to soothing music was already familiar to Kris from her experience with GDF and its practice of piping classical music into kennel areas to create a relaxing atmosphere. Kris also played classical music for her anxious golden retriever Hannah, who would become Kris’s in-house test subject while developing the musical collar.
Debbie Greco Cohen, Business Manager has spent her entire career in the marketing communications industry. Before starting her own agency, she spent 20 years working for large ad agencies in Manhattan for clients such as IBM, American Express, and Verizon. By applying the same basic strategic and execution principles, her extensive experience managing fully integrated multi-media campaigns for these multinational clients has served her smaller clients well in her own agency.
Debbie Kossoff, Marketing Officer has over 30 years of graphic design and production management experience. She has extensive creative expertise in a wide range of disciplines as well as a level of strategic vision that goes well beyond just first-rate graphic design. A passion for great design and synergy in visual and written messaging has been foremost in Debbie’s production of successful campaigns for consumer and business-to-business companies.
Support Crew
Bradley Joseph is a professional keyboardist and composer who created the songs downloaded onto the MP3 player in our Music Mutz Collar. Aside from touring with such noted musicians as Yanni and recording with other artists, Bradley uses his talent to compose music that has been proven to soothe animals. We work closely with Bradley to ensure that the instrumentals and sound effects included in each song stimulate positive responses in dogs.
Mike Libertucci, owner of Saratoga Horseworks, and his talented team custom designed our Music Mutz collars using the same meticulous level of detail and quality as he has insisted upon for his unsurpassed horse clothing and other equestrian fabric items for over 30 years.
PiMios is a Pennsylvania-based engineering consulting firm that develops embedded systems (firmware and hardware) that provide a foundation for device functionality and business strategies. Their amazing team has been instrumental in making changes to our initial product, building repeatable solutions, implementing scalable issues for the programming process provided by our original engineering Chris Garman and his team, sourcing and quality-checking components, and so much more.