WEIRD & WILD

Why Do Dogs Watch—and React to—TV?

Just like humans, their response to the tube depends on their personality, experts say.

Dogs watch a Bakers dog food TV advertisement, created especially for canines, in the U.K. in 2012. The one-minute ad contains high-frequency noises that can be heard only by man's best friend.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SOLENT NEWS, REX FEATURES/AP

Liz Langley

for National Geographic

PUBLISHED JANUARY 11, 2015

Our first Weird Animal Question of the Week of 2015 comes to us from our very own photo editor Mallory Benedict, who's curious about why her sister's poodle pays such rapt attention to the television.

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"He totally loses it when there's any kind of animal on TV. How does he recognize animals on TV, and why does he have such a strong reaction?" Benedict asked.

Domestic dogs can perceive images on television similarly to the way we do, and they are intelligent enough to recognize onscreen images of animals as they would in real life—even animals they've never seen before—and to recognize TV dog sounds, like barking.

A 2013 study published in the journal Animal Cognition showed that dogs could identify images of other dogs among pictures of humans and other animals, using their visual sense alone. (Also see "OCD Dogs, People Have Similar Brains; Is Your Dog OCD?")

However, there are some differences between ourselves and man's best friend—for one, dogs' eyes register images more quickly than do ours. So older television sets, which show fewer frames per second than modern televisions, would appear to a dog to be flickering like a "1920s movie," said Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist at Tufts University, in Massachusetts.

Dogs also have dichromatic vision, which means they see a range of two primary colors, yellow and blue. Human vision is trichromatic, so we see the full range of colors, according to Binghamton University's Ask a Scientist web page.

DogTV, an HDTV cable channel designed for dogs, interests canines because HDTV has a much higher number of frames per second and is specially colored to accommodate dogs' dichromatic vision, said Dodman, who is the channel's chief scientist. (See National Geographic's best dog pictures.)

DogTV has modes for relaxation, which shows images like dogs chilling out in a grassy field; stimulation, which depicts scenes like dogs surfing in southern California; and exposure which shows things like a dog reacting to a ringing doorbell and obeying commands to acclimate them to such situations at home.

Doggie Style

Beyond biology, how dogs react to TV—whether it's running around, barking excitedly, or just ignoring it—may come down to personality or breed.

"Different dogs, like people, have different personalities," Dodman said. "Some are territorial, some are not; some like people, some hate people; some are predatory, some aren't; some are pushy, some are shy.

"It takes all types of dogs to make the world go round," he added.

Hearing a barking dog on the set often gets TV-watching dogs excited. (Check out this YouTube video of a German shepherd that barks only when another dog appears on the TV, totally ignoring those boring humans.)

Some dogs not only bark at animals on the screen, but also run behind the TV looking for them.

Others "have been desensitized to television. When they see a dog [on TV], they [may] think, 'Those guys just hang out on the television. They never actually walk around,'" Dodman said. (Take National Geographic's dog quiz.)

What breed a dog is may influence its reactions to TV. Hounds, which are driven by smell, aren't as interested in visuals, but herding breeds, such as terriers, may be more stimulated by moving objects they see on the small screen.

Watch Dog

Many of us leave a radio or TV on when we leave the house to keep our dog company, hoping that the sound is more comforting to our pets than silence, Dodman said.

Channels that feature animals might be preferable to news programs, but, like many humans, dogs often just half-watch TV anyway.

"They orient to things they're interested in, look at it for a couple of minutes and go 'hmm, interesting,' and then look away," said Dodman. Even so, "that's better than spinning your wheels all day while your owners are away."

First their own channel. Next they'll start tweeting #walkies.

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5 comments

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Lauran Yorita2 hours ago

I have a question regarding the sound of a barking dog on the television. My dog does not pay any normal attention to the TV, only reacting to knocks on doors/doorbell ringing (by barking of course), but only sometimes to barking dogs. Can dogs understand the "content" of a barking dog on TV? In other words, does my dog only react to a "real" bark where the dog is startled or guarding and does not react for a "bark command" such as "speak"? I can't really think of any other reason that he only reacts to some barking dogs on TV, but not all barking dogs on TV!

Paul Tabone8 hours ago

Perhaps the proper intro should have been "PETS" instead of dogs. My cats will occasionally pay attention to the screen. On the other hand my cats are as likely to keep sleeping as well. Must be the degree of domestication that dogs have had bred in versus cats. That also parallels the seemingly standoffish behavior that cats are known for over dogs.

OTOH, my cats will go nuts if there's a squirrel or bird outside the window and will follow it from one end of the house to the other, anticipating it's direction even while not seeing it.

Shoshone Creek9 hours ago

Our blonde lab love the nature channel. He has front and forward and completely focused on the TV when the animal shows are on the screen - he will occasionally bark and charge up to the screen and sniff away. He also loves the Simpsons and Bob - he loves the voices.

Brian Neufeldt1 day ago

From 1996 to 2007, I had a German Shepard that would sit on the couch with my wife and watch the TV with her, but if she switched to a

soccer game, he would go right up to the screen, and try to

catch the ball.

Amanda Martin2 days ago

Cats will watch television too. My two cats regularly watch TV. They are especially interested in images of birds, rodents, cats, and dogs, but do watch documentary type shows that are safari themed or nature docs.

Maybe they should really look into that.

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