Why Do Dogs Watch - and React - to TV?



     This is Bo, four-legged sweetheart, rescue dog and world's greatest terrier but don't watch Downton Abbey with him. From the minute the blonde lab comes on in the opening credits Bo is watching for - and barking at - any other dogs who might come through the TV and invade his owner Sammy's living room. In this video, when he hears a TV dog, you can see him giving that animal what for.

     Not two days after I shot this video Mallory Benedict, one of the photo editors I work with in my freelance work at National Geographic, sent me an email wondering why her sister's dog reacted  to television - thus came the story Why Do Dogs Watch—and React—to TV? on NatGeo. Check it out - you'll find out what's going through your dog or cat's mind when the tube is on and all about a TV channel just for dogs. Bo actually watched pretty attentively - and without reading those onscreen dogs the riot act.

     I tease Bo a little bit about barking, but the truth is that it's fun to watch him go after TV dogs, plus we all know he does it is to protect us. With Bo around we're safe from intruders, wild animals and Lassie. Good dog.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Save Them All: A trip to Best Friends Animal Society in Utah

Image
"Would you like to go where you've always wanted to go and do one of your favorite things ever?" That's not how the press trip to Best Friends Animal Society sanctuary in Angel Canyon, Utah was put to me, but that's how I heard it. I've long wanted to see Utah and Best Friends held the promise of playing with dogs. And cats. And seeing horses, goats and probably a few other things that were on your See-and-Say: The Farmer Says. Animals never lose their magic.  This was one of the most magical trips I've ever been on (and I've been to the Playboy Mansion). I'm working on my story for Alternet right now; this is photo companion for pics of the things I talk about in that. I may post more on other aspects of the journey. Wait. I just got it. That's what was different. This wasn't a trip. It was a journey, one I hope as many people get to go on as possible.  Above: Pima learning about cameras from Melissa Miller in puppy social...
Read more

Buy my book: Crazy Little Thing: How Love and Sex Drive Us Mad

Image
       Carl von Cosel installed a phone in his dead wife's tomb so they could chat - he eventually just took her home.      Burt and Linda Pugach married after he did a prison sentence for sending thugs to 'scare' her and they blinded her with acid.     Love makes us all feel insane. If it hasn't knocked you on your ass you haven't been in it.       I wrote Crazy Little Thing: Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad several years ago because I wanted to understand why romantic problems had such a stranglehold on me and how people's greatest happiness, the thing we all want, could lead to them killing each other. It was published by Viva Editions just before the explosion of true crime shows like Wives with Knives and Who the Bleep Did I Marry?      My hope for the book has always been that the interviews with everyone from psychologists to felons would help people understand themselves but also that it would be a...
Read more

Say Ahhhhh: Drive-Thru Pap Smears in the COVID era

Image
        Listening to my friends talk about the COVID-19 test I thought it was going to feel like getting a lobotomy.      “They stick a swab so far up your nose, I felt like it was going into the back of my eye,” one said, but when free drive-through testing was offered in my little Florida beach town I went. I can pinch a penny until Lincoln starts crying and if something is free, I’m going to get one, even if it means being skewered like a corn dog.  The test was mildly irritating. You tilt your head back and they do, indeed, poke a swab up your snoot farther than you’d expect it to go. It felt like I’d been bike riding and got ladybug stuck up my nose, a sensation which lasted about 45 minutes after the actual sticking. It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, but I’d anticipated getting my eyeballs yoinked out through my nostrils.  Anything else was emotional found money. What left a more lasting impression than the test was ...
Read more