Pets are easily threatened by perfect babies. As are most average humans.

I’ve discovered, however—thanks to my friends at The Cradle—a new way to prepare your dog, cat, ferret, or gerbil to cope with your new miracle, who, even in her boring, newborn state is more fascinating than a gerbil. And most cats.

The makers of Baby Sounds for Pets, a new CD, claim they’ve discovered how to gently acclimatize your pet to the many new sounds that will soon emanate from your nursery: Simply pop the disc in your CD player a month before delivery, surrounding your gerbil or Labradoodle with recorded cooing, gurgling, and high-pitched laughter until it comes to cherish these noises.

Okay. Kinda nuts, but kinda makes sense. But here’s the puzzling twist: One of the CD’s tracks is called “Baby Temper Tantrum.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that I could effectively “relieve anxiety” in a high-strung whippet by subjecting him to keening wails, or “resolve jealousy behavior” on the part of a calico cat by blasting her small pointed ears with inarticulate toddler demands. (And do expectant moms really want to fill their home with temper tantrums in the weeks leading up to birth?)

It could be worse. You could be bombarding your pet with the “Meow Mix”jingle, an established U.S. Military method for torturing detainees during interrogations.