Overview

• Surveying 453 U.S. dog owners, researchers found that temperament traits like excitability and anxiety—rather than breed, age or sex—dictate dogs’ TV viewing behaviors.
• Approximately 45 percent of dogs reliably respond to animal content on screen, showing a marked preference for images and sounds of other dogs.
• Excitable dogs often follow moving objects off-screen, while fearful or anxious dogs are more reactive to non-animal stimuli such as doorbells and car horns.
• On average, dogs watch television for about 14 minutes per session and some even look behind the screen, suggesting they perceive on-screen stimuli as real.
• Research teams are now preparing citizen-science video recordings and controlled vision experiments to refine canine vision assessments and develop tailored enrichment tools for dogs.