Does your dog watch television? In a 2021 survey, the Center for Canine Behavior Studies found that approximately 50 percent of their 708 dog sample reacted to television content. A recent study by a team of researchers at Auburn University, headed by Lane Montgomery, provides new information, not on the number of dogs that watch TV, but on the type of TV programming that would most likely capture the attention of dogs.
The Influence of Technology
It would have been less useful to ask this question a mere 25 years ago because of the nature of television screens. At that time, the majority of home TVs used raster-based images. On these screens, the image was painted in lines to form the picture, and the images were updated and redrawn 60 times per second. Since this is a faster flicker rate than the human eye’s ability to resolve, the image appears to be continuous, and the gradually changing images give us the illusion that there is smooth movement being displayed. However, because dogs can resolve flickers at a rate of 75 cycles per second, a TV screen of that type likely appeared to be flickering to dogs, and that flickering would make the images appear to be less real, and thus less likely to capture the attention of the canine eye. However, today’s TV screens use a different technology in which the pictures are much more realistic and not subject to flickering. This should make it more likely that today’s dogs will watch television programs.
Some Previous Research
As far as I can ascertain, there has been only one large study that has looked at TV programming preferences in dogs. A team of investigators from the University of Wisconsin at Madison used results from a survey of dog owners to demonstrate that dogs do watch television . However, they found that, when they do, their viewing times are short, only between one and five minutes in length. They also found that there were systematic program content preferences, with the attention of dogs more likely to be caught when what was showing involved animals, less so if that was a human animal, and least preferred were inanimate objects (even if they were moving, such as cars driving by).
A New Look at Canine Program Preference
This newest research also used a survey of dog owners, and they gathered a data bank of 453 participants. In this study, there was an important preset criterion, namely that the only dogs that were included were those for which the owner indicated that their dogs watched television, at least sometimes. The novel aspect of this latest research is that the investigators recognized that television provides two different channels of sensory output. The one that people tend to think of first is the visual images, which make up a program; however, there is also a soundtrack that provides auditory stimulation. In this study, the effects of both sight and sound were measured separately.
Dog owners were asked to indicate how frequently their dogs responded to specific visual TV scenes from the categories: dogs, non-dog pets (cats), non-household animals (horses, birds), humans, or inanimate objects (moving cars). They could answer by indicating whether their dog responded never, rarely, sometimes, often, or always to each particular type of image.
For the sound component, they used a similar scale to indicate how often their dogs responded to particular noises on the TV from the following list: dog noises (barking, howling), household animal noises (meowing), non-household animal noises (neighing, mooing), human noises (talking, yelling), inanimate noises (car horn, doorbell), or weather noises (thunder, rain).
What Captures a Dog’s Attention on TV
The data from these responses was analyzed using some high-powered statistics, which the average reader would find difficult to interpret; however, supplementary data was available that allowed me to do a basic re-analysis, which is much more easily interpreted and is presented in this table.
What dogs tend to be most interested in are dogs. The visual presentation of a dog on a video screen captures the attention of 83 percent of canines; however, other animals, whether household pets or more exotic creatures, are also quite popular, attracting responses from 70 percent of the dogs. Humans are way lower in terms of attractiveness, garnering only 35 percent of viewership, but at least people are more popular than inanimate objects moving across the screen.
A Similar Pattern for Sounds
When it comes to sounds coming from the TV, the results parallel those for visual images. The most popular sounds are dog sounds, which cause a response in 78 percent of the dogs in the sample. The sounds of other animals are significantly less attractive, and the sounds that people make don’t capture much canine attention, attracting only 11 percent of the dogs. Certain inanimate sounds, like doorbells and car horns, produce a much more vigorous response than the sound of a human speaking or shouting. Weather sounds barely register on the canine consciousness, attracting only 7 percent of dogs.
One finding that surprised me: visual images seem to be much more compelling than the sounds that come from the television. When it comes to the difference between seeing a dog and hearing one on the TV speakers, the difference is negligible statistically; both readily capture canine attention. However, the sight of another animal, including a human, is significantly more effective than simply hearing the sound of that animal. The exception is for the sounds made by inanimate objects, which are more attractive when heard rather than when seen.
Based on these data, if your dog is one of those who watches television, and if they were given control of the channel changer, you would more likely find them watching Animal Planet or The Discovery Channel rather than any of the news networks, or those that specialize in movies or sports. Of course, dogs might gravitate towards channels that show a lot of Westerns since they would likely find the horses and cattle a lot more interesting than the images and sounds made by mere humans. They are not likely to be seen watching a NASCAR race, but the broadcast of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show would certainly be a doggie favorite.
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