How your dog reacts to your favourite TV show could say a lot about their personality, according to the latest research.
With the help of hundreds of dogs, a recent Nature study found that excitable pooches were more likely to believe what they saw on TV was real, while nervous dogs were more likely to react to humans or non-animal objects, such as cars.
But according to Lane Montgomery, a graduate student at Auburn University who led the study, there was one topic all dogs agreed on.
“Preliminarily, dogs seem to most prefer television that includes other dogs and animals,” Montgomery told BBC Science Focus.
But a word of warning before you queue up a playlist of dog videos for your own precious pooch – almost half of the 453 dogs studied joined in every time their on-screen siblings started to bark or howl.
Breed and gender appeared to have no bearing on how they reacted, and old dogs were just as likely to pay attention as young pups.
Dogs have been watching TV alongside their humans for almost 100 years. Today, there are even dedicated channels and programmes meant specifically for dogs to help enrich their lives while their humans are busy.
However, there has been very little scientific research into how dogs react to what they’re watching.
To rectify this, Montgomery asked dog owners to fill in a survey recording how their pets reacted to other dogs, animals, humans, inanimate objects and the weather when they appeared on TV.
According to Montgomery, more impulsive dogs were more likely to follow objects off the television screen or investigate around the back of the TV to see where they went, suggesting the animals were expecting what they saw to be real.
Meanwhile, scaredy-dogs were more likely to react to seeing a human on TV or hearing a doorbell.
The study only looked into what dogs engaged with most, not whether these interactions were positive or negative.
However, the insights gleaned could help owners understand how to target training to eliminate problem behaviours or help them be more aware of which shows may be causing their pets stress.
“The main goal of this study was to better characterise how dogs respond to different types of television programming in order to increase the efficacy of television as an enrichment tool for dogs,” Montgomery said. “By knowing what types of television programming dogs respond to, dog television programming can be refined to what dogs are most likely to enjoy.”
About our expert
Lane Montgomery is a doctoral candidate in the Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences program at Auburn University in the US. Her research focuses on the behaviour and cognition of dogs in order to improve companion dog welfare and working dog efficiency.
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