High-energy dogs tend to follow movement, while some anxious ones don’t like doorbell noises
Is Your Dog Really Watching TV — or Just Humoring You?
Maybe your Pomeranian is a little too into The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Your pit bull claims to love MMA, but deep down, he’s curled up in a onesie watching The Bachelor. While many dog owners have caught their pups staring at the screen, what dogs actually take in from television might depend more on personality than breed, researchers suggest in a new study published July 17 in Scientific Reports.
It’s not uncommon for owners to leave the TV on to keep their dogs company — and entire channels now cater to canine viewers, featuring soothing music, other animals, and even controlled exposure to “scary” sounds like vacuum cleaners or doorbells.
But Jeffrey Katz, a comparative psychologist at Auburn University, wondered: What are dogs really getting from this?
Do Dogs Actually See TV?
Until recently, the answer may have been “not much.” Dogs have dichromatic vision — they see fewer colors than humans — and a higher “flicker-fusion rate,” meaning older TVs appeared as a series of flashing still images to them. But modern LED screens solve that problem. “These new LED screens have a much higher resolution rate,” Katz explains. “Now, it’s fused together. Dogs can watch moving images much like we can.”
What Dogs Notice — and Why Personality Matters
Katz and his team surveyed 453 U.S. dog owners via Facebook and email, asking what types of images and sounds their dogs responded to on TV. Nearly half of the owners (45%) reported their dogs showed interest in sounds or images of other dogs. Breed, age, and sex didn’t seem to affect responses — but personality did.
More excitable dogs were more likely to follow moving objects on screen, especially animals. Study coauthor Lane Montgomery saw this firsthand with her own dog, a 3-year-old Catahoula leopard dog named Jax. “He is especially a fan of dog shows,” she says. Some dogs even looked behind the screen to find where an off-screen animal had “gone.”
Anxious dogs, on the other hand, didn’t fare as well. They reacted negatively to certain TV sounds, particularly doorbells or creaking doors — which, to them, might signal a real-life intruder.
TV Isn’t Always Enrichment
Seana Dowling-Guyer, an animal behaviorist at Tufts University who wasn’t involved in the study, cautions that not all dogs benefit from background TV. “Sometimes it’s too much — it can be overstimulating,” she says.
She also notes that some dogs may respond more to you than to what’s on-screen. If you’re yelling at a sports game, for instance, your dog might pick up on that excitement — not the touchdown replay.
Know Your Dog Before Pressing Play
So, should you leave Survivor or Dateline on for your dog when you leave the house? It depends.
“People really should know their pets and their personalities,” Dowling-Guyer says. Some dogs may love the stimulation of sights and sounds, while others prefer calm and quiet. A high-energy Labrador might enjoy following a tennis match, while a more sensitive pup might be happier without the background buzz.
And if your dog prefers rom-coms or true crime over DogTV? No judgment here. Just don’t be surprised if they try to look behind the screen for the killer.