Are dogs starting to watch more television?

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A number of new television stations are opening around the world with programming specifically designed for dogs to watch. Does this make sense, asks dog expert Stanley Coren.

Many people report that their dogs completely ignore what is visible on television, while others report that their dogs are often captivated by events on the TV screen. Whether or not a dog pays attention to a programme on television depends upon a number of factors.

One important factor has to do with the way the dog’s eye works.

The canine eye is designed to efficiently detect movement. The image on a standard television screen is updated and redrawn 60 times per second.

Since a human’s flicker resolution ability is only 55Hz, the image appears continuous and the gradually changing images give us the illusion of movement.

Since dogs can discern flickers at 75Hz, a television screen probably appears to be rapidly flickering to them. A flickering image would obviously appear to be less real, and thus many dogs do not direct much attention to it.

Nonetheless, some dogs ignore the apparent flickering of the TV image and seem to respond to dogs and other images on the television screen if they are interesting enough.

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