A few days ago, my fiance Erich and I put on a movie called Strays and as we were watching, our dog Toad walked up to the television and started watching. We have had him for over two years now and this has never happened. He has never been the least bit interested in what we were watching. And since he started watching TV, he has not stopped. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for him. So naturally, I had to do some research to understand more about this.
There are several things that I learned.
- Dogs have to be pretty close to the screen in order to see the tv. The farther away they are, the grainer it will look to them.
- Dogs don’t see as many colors as we do.
- Some dogs can recognize other dogs on screen. Either by hearing or seeing.
- Some dogs may not be interested in TV.
- Dogs don’t recognize that the TV is not real life.
Now I have several notes on these.
- This makes sense since Toad was fairly close to the TV when he started following it.
- I have heard this in the past but I never knew the reasons why.
For more information check out this link. - I can tell that part of the reason Toad enjoyed Strays so much was because it was centered around dogs.
- For the past two or so years, Toad has had no interest in TV. So I wholeheartedly believe that some dogs just don’t recognize or show interest.
- Honestly, I feel bad because I don’t want Toad to feel that he has to protect Erich and I from what’s on the TV. He may see it as a window and feel he has a duty to look out for us.
Even though he may not fully understand it, I’m happy that Toad has discovered something new. He even likes watching us play video games as well now. Going forward, I will be putting on more nature and animal oriented shows and movies to entertain him.
I’m curious, how many of you have experienced this with your pets? Let me know in the comments below.
For more information on the resources used for this, please check out the below links:
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