Top five songs about dogs

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We already know that dogs are happier listening to soft rock and reggae. But there are countless songs throughout history that, in some way or another, are inspired by man's best friend. We've compiled the best of the best:

George Clinton - Atomic Dog

It doesn't get much funkier than this. Since its original release in 1982, the P-Funk Collective's arguably most popular song has been sampled in a huge number of hip-hop songs (the most famous being Snoop Dogg's Who Am I? (What's My Name?) in 1993). Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuyS9M8T03A

Baha Men - Who Let the Dogs Out?

Love it or hate it, this song is the sound of the turn of the millennium and one of New Zealand's biggest chart toppers of the year 2000. Apparently the Baha Men, a (surprise, surprise) Bahamian group that formed in the '80s, were reluctant to record the song in the first place but, on the advice of their manager, they went ahead. The rest, as they say, is history.

Black Dog - Led Zeppelin

How could we leave Black Dog off this list? A lot of people think the opening track on legendary English rock band Led Zeppelin's 1971 album Led Zeppelin IV is a reference to depression. In fact, it's a reference to a nameless black Labrador that hung around the studios during the recording of the album. The song reached #10 in the NZ charts in 1972.

Harry Nilsson - The Puppy Song

Perhaps one of the more obscure songs on the list. The Puppy Song is a twee excursion written by Harry Nilsson, at the request of none other than Paul McCartney, for Mary Hopkin, an 18-year-old singer McCartney had just signed to Apple Records. You might remember Nilsson's version of the track from the opening credits of popular 1998 film You've Got Mail.

AC/DC - Dog Eat Dog

Three years before Bon Scott's untimely death, legendary Aussie rock band AC/DC released its timeless album Let There Be Rock. The second track on the album, Dog Eat Dog, isn't one of the better-known songs of AC/DC (it's even been dropped off their set list in favour of High Voltage in recent years), but it sure is good.