What Dogs Most Like to Watch on TV

Photo by BazzaDaRambler (CC BY 2.0 Deed)

Does your dog watch television? Does he have a favorite program or style of programming? These are the kinds of questions that a research team, headed by senior researcher Freya Mowat from the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Wisconsin at Madison has been asking.

A Case Study

I became interested in dogs watching television when I had my Cairn terrier, Flint. I believed that dogs often don't pay great attention to television because the TV screen is normally raised off the ground and thus goes relatively unnoticed. However, in my home, if my dog was on the sofa with me, the television, which sat on a wooden tea table, was closer to his eye level and easily observed.

Over time, I noticed that Flint appeared to have a favorite TV show: "The Littlest Hobo." This was a low-budget series starring a dog, a German Shepherd, who wandered around the countryside, befriending various people and heroically getting them out of trouble. When the dog would appear, Flint's attention would immediately be caught and he would track Hobo's movements across the screen.

Yet those typical responses to television images were modest compared to the day of the attack of the giant rats.

In the genes of every terrier is the ability and desire to eliminate rats and other vermin. While cats are certainly more efficient at killing mice, where stealth and patience are the most important qualities for the hunt, rats may be too large and vicious for some cats to handle; hence, terriers were bred for the job.

I no longer remember the name of the film that was being shown on TV that night, but I remember bits of the content. The critical events began in some kind of tunnel or cave, and the sequence began with a close-up of a mass of rats. When Flint saw this image of apparently giant rats filling the screen, he started to quiver and growl.

Then there was some sound or startling event in the film and the rats stampeded, racing toward the viewer and past the heroes. Flint couldn't contain himself any longer. He launched himself off of the sofa and attacked the wooden stand on which the television stood. Growling, barking, biting, chewing—desperately trying to grab the table leg and shake it to death. In a matter of moments, the wooden leg of the TV stand looked like it had gone through a war.

Meanwhile, the rat scene had drawn to a close. The squeals were now gone and no rodents were visible on the face of the tube. Flint backed off and looked up. He snorted once or twice through his nose, and then with tail erect and legs stiff, he proudly walked out of the room, pausing only once to glance at the TV to make sure that his job of saving us from the onslaught of vermin had been well done and was truly finished.

New Data on Dogs Watching Television

The current study involved 1,246 participants, mostly from the United States. The main part of the study involved a questionnaire in which dog owners described their dog's television viewing habits.

I was somewhat surprised to find that 72 percent of the dogs actively watched TV or computer screens at least once a day. However, the dogs did seem to have a short attention span, and most tended to view the video images for only one to five minutes at a time. Very few dogs focused their attention on televised content for more than 20 minutes.

When attracted to images on the screen, the most commonly observed behaviors of dogs involved turning their head to track the image, moving their ears, approaching the screen, or uttering sounds like barks, growls, or whimpers.

Age made a difference. Younger dogs were more likely to watch television than their older counterparts.

Although both visual and sound stimuli might attract the dogs to the TV, the sight of movement was 15 percent more likely than any sound to capture a dog's attention.

Video Content That Dogs Like Best

Program content seemed to be critical when it comes to canine viewer preference. The most engaging subjects were animals, and within the animal category, perhaps unsurprisingly, dogs were the most popular animal and attracted several viewers.

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This was confirmed in the second phase of the study. Here, about half of the participants showed specially prepared short video clips to their dogs on their television, their computer, or their phone. The clips included a dog, a large cat, a bird, and highway traffic. Reinforcing the questionnaire responses, it was the dog video that attracted the highest interest.

Overall the data showed that dogs have a broad bias toward paying attention to animal content. It is of some interest that the sight of humans was not particularly appealing as programming for dogs. Videos containing humans ranked ninth out of 17 predetermined categories, just ahead of cartoons or animations.

Movement on the screen was in and of itself not sufficient to capture the attention of dogs since inanimate objects in motion, like cars moving on a highway, did not draw much viewing time.

Dogs were not particularly attracted to program content featuring sports—although, if a ball was involved (particularly basketball and soccer) just over one-quarter of the dogs who watched TV would turn their attention to the screen.

A dog's breed also predicts the likelihood that he will watch a video screen. Herding and sporting breeds were the most likely to be TV watchers, while nonsporting and working dog breeds were least likely to become couch potatoes addicted to television.

The Real Purpose Behind This Research

I am certain that some readers are beginning to wonder why serious scientists would be engaging in an investigation looking at dogs' television viewing preferences. After all, even aggressive marketers recognize that dogs are not consumers who will go out and purchase items advertised on TV programs.

Freya Mowat, the senior researcher on this study, explained that she anticipates that these results can be tuned and expanded to help design methods to measure the visual status of dogs and determine the effect that processes, like aging, have on canine vision. In a press release, she says:

“The method we currently use to assess vision in dogs is a very low bar. In humans, it would be equivalent to saying yes or no if a person was blind. We need more sensitive ways to assess vision in dogs, using a dog eye chart equivalent. We speculate that videos have the potential for sustaining a dog’s attention long enough to assess visual function, but we didn’t know what type of content is most engaging and appealing to dogs.”

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