A dog’s ‘personality’ could drive how they engage with content on TV: Study

Dogs may have ‘personalities’ which guide their television viewing habits — an anxious dog might respond more to cars or a doorbell sound, while an excitable one is more likely to follow on-screen objects, a study has found.

Researchers from Auburn University, US, also found that pet dogs may perceive two-dimensional objects on the TV screen in a manner similar to those in the three-dimensional environment.

The results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, help understand a pet dog’s internal, perceptual experience and may inform interventions taken towards their welfare.

“In practice, engagement with television could provide dogs with an enriching, meaningful experience," the authors wrote.

About 650 dog owners responded to surveys after observing their dog’s TV viewing habits. Aspects such as whether an owner taught their dog to watch TV or not, hours in a week spent watching TV and average time a dog paid attention while watching were surveyed.

Dogs’ reactions to objects on-screen — animals, non-animals and how much they were followed — were assessed. Age range of the 453 dogs finally included in the analysis was two months to 16 years old.

Dogs were found to be more likely to react to animals on-screen than to other stimuli, with about 45 per cent of the dogs (206) always responding to dog noises such as barking and howling.

The authors wrote, “Dogs who were more excitable were more likely to exhibit behaviours suggesting an expectation that the television stimulus exists in the 3D environment (i.e., follow behaviours)." “Furthermore, dogs who displayed more fearful tendencies were more likely to respond to the non-animal stimuli (e.g., car, doorbell)," they wrote.

The researchers said that differences in dogs’ temperament could inform owners’ training methods in rectifying problem behaviours towards content on television.

Technology