One dog’s delight is another dog’s distress. Especially when the television is on.
Every evening, as the television flickers to life in living rooms across the world, many dogs plop down beside their humans and stare at the screen. Some sit still, their ears twitching at seemingly distant howls coming from the TV screen. Others leap up, barking at a car engine or a squirrel-shaped blur darting across the frame. And some barely glance, retreating to a quieter corner of the room — although most dogs like to watch other dogs on the screen.
In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists at Auburn University have shown that dogs’ engagement with television isn’t random or merely anecdotal — it’s actually shaped by temperament. Excitable dogs track tennis balls onscreen like they’re ready to leap. Anxious dogs, on the other hand, perk up at the sound of a doorbell or car engine, sometimes visibly agitated.
The findings mark the first peer-reviewed, population-level look at how pet dogs interact with one of the most common pieces of household technology: the television.
A Window, Not a Mirror
Dogs, like humans, are awash in media. Screens are part of their environment now, from background noise during the day to specialized programming like DOGTV. “With media-related technology more accessible than ever, the frequency with which dogs are exposed to different forms of media is increasing,” the authors write.
Although dogs don’t scroll through media feeds or control the remote, they nevertheless attend selectively. Some things on TV pique their interest while other programs don’t phase them at all. And the Auburn team wanted to know: what determines their interest?
To find out, the researchers anonymously surveyed 650 dog owners, narrowing their final sample to 453 dogs that demonstrably engaged with TV. The survey, distributed online between February and March 2024, included questions about the dogs’ general habits, personality traits, and specific reactions to stimuli onscreen — from barking and tail wagging to following objects off-screen as if they were real.
The team then analyzed the responses using a new Dog Television Viewing Scale (DTVS), a 16-question metric that assessed both auditory and visual behaviors across different categories, including animals, people, and inanimate objects.
A Tale of Three Stimuli
The researchers found that dogs’ engagement clustered around three stimuli:
- Animal stimuli: Dogs — whether onscreen or barking offscreen — grabbed the most attention. Nearly half of all dogs in the study always responded to dog noises like barking and howling.
- Following behavior: Some dogs didn’t just react; they tracked objects as if they believed the screen held real, physical things. These dogs often looked behind the TV or walked alongside a moving object as it left the screen.
- Non-animal stimuli: Reactions to sounds like car horns or visuals like human actors were far less common — but notable among certain dogs.
The study’s main findings though were that these viewing patterns were strongly influenced by temperament.
Dogs classified by their owners as excitable — typically those high in energy and easily stimulated — were much more likely to follow objects across the screen. In contrast, fearful or anxious dogs responded more often to non-animal noises suggesting heightened sensitivity to potential threats.
“Dogs who were more excitable were more likely to exhibit behaviors suggesting an expectation that the television stimulus exists in the 3D environment,” the researchers explain. “Furthermore, dogs who displayed more fearful tendencies were more likely to respond to the non-animal stimuli, for example car [or] doorbell.”
Do Dogs Know It’s Not Real?
This study revisits an enduring question in animal cognition: can dogs tell the difference between the real and the represented?
Some earlier studies have tried to find an answer with mixed results. Dogs have obeyed commands issued by humans on screen just as they would from a person in the room, a 2003 study found. But up until now, research on dogs’ television watching has been very limited. The new study shows that many dogs were treating what they saw as real, following it, reacting to it, even searching for it in the room.
“These results suggest that dogs may represent objects in the 2D television format similarly to the 3D environment,” the study notes.
That interpretation could have major implications for how dogs experience the world.
Why does this matter, you ask? Because understanding how dogs perceive and react to media could help shape better environments for them, especially in settings where enrichment and stress reduction are highly important, like animal shelters.
A Tailored Viewing Experience
“Engagement with television could provide dogs with an enriching, meaningful experience,” the researchers write. But the wrong content (especially for anxious animals) could backfire.
Already, some shelters and pet owners are experimenting with leaving TVs on as a calming influence. But this study suggests it’s not one-size-fits-all. For some dogs, TV could be stimulating. For others, it could become a source of stress.
“Further evaluation of these behaviors could result in appropriate application of television interventions in shelters based upon individual dog temperament,” the authors note. That could mean screening content for signs of overstimulation, or even customizing programming based on a dog’s personality profile.
Interestingly, the study found no significant differences in viewing habits based on age, sex, or breed. That challenges assumptions that, say, a herding dog might be more visually oriented than a scent hound. It turns out personality — particularly a dog’s levels of excitability or negative reactivity — mattered more than genetic background.
That said, the study does have limits. It focused only on dogs already inclined to watch TV, and relied on self-reported data from owners. “Accurate owner interpretation of a dog’s behavior could not be guaranteed,” the authors acknowledge. Still, the data lay an important foundation for future lab-based experiments and behavioral tracking studies.
So, Should You Leave the TV On?
If you’ve ever left Animal Planet running for your dog, this study offers some guidance. If your dog is excitable and energetic, they might enjoy fast-moving visual stimuli — a tennis match, for instance, or wildlife documentaries with active scenes. But for nervous dogs, even a sitcom doorbell might trigger a stress response.
Understanding the dog’s personality, not just its preferences, could shape a happier living environment — and one day, maybe even personalized canine programming.
After all, your dog may not care who wins The Bachelor. But it might care deeply about that squeaky toy commercial that plays between the ads.
The findings were published in Scientific Reports.
