I used to have a cat who like to play with the remote. He would change channels, etc., so I always hid the remote when I wasn’t using it. I always suspected that he watched TV when I wasn’t home.
And years ago I had a dog who would watch animals on TV. When a dog would run off the screen, she would look behind the TV to see where it went.
Years ago we had a cat who enjoyed watching Sea Hunt every week. When it was on he’d spend the half hour lying across the back of an easy chair watching with rapt attention. We said he was enjoying the fish without getting wet.
We haven’t seen her repeat the sit command in response to the tv, but I can say with certainty she most definitely seems to understand that what’s being said or done on screen matches what’s going on with her own obedience training. Last night I turned the ‘good girl show’ on and as soon as the instructor started giving commands our doggeh ran over to the container where we keep the training treats and nosed it, when I didn’t immediately get up she ran back to me pawed at me and then ran back to the training treat container and nosed it again. “hey, it’s time to do training and give me treats cuz the tv lady said so”
Whenever I was out of town, I had a pet setter check on my cats daily. She said that she always turned off the TV before she left my house, but it was always on when she came back. The first time it happened, she was completely freaked out, but eventually she accepted that the cats were using the remote to turn on the TV. It pretty much had to be intentional.
As far as I know, the cats never figured out how to select a channel.
Dammit! QVC on again and here I am without a card!
Lord, does she ever, at least when there’s a dog or horse or something similar on the “magic window”. The problem is, Daisy is a Saint Bernard, which means she can easily reach the TV and bump her nose up against whatever she sees there. She frequently does and tries to chase things off the left and right of the screen. Most recent example: on Sunday, I woke up early and flipped around the channels, and eventually found The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. Well, guess who loves bears! I keep telling her, “Daisy! You can’t meet animals through the magic window!”, but she does not listen. It has seriously gotten to the point where we can’t even watch dog food commercials any more; she leaps up and bonks her nose on the screen, trying to introduce herself to the dog on TV.
There were two incidents, also, that were quite funny. One time, I was in the kitchen, and I couldn’t see what was on the TV. Daisy was walking past it, and suddenly she started growling, and slowly approached the TV and gave a tentative sniff (threat assessment). I walked around to see what had upset her so much. It was Usher, on an episode of The Voice.
But the second is a Big Hairy Chicken incident. My wife and I both saw it, and it was hilarious. We were watching The Muppets, and Daisy sauntered into the room, right past the TV, and casually glanced at it. At that moment, there was a very large close-up of Animal on the screen. Daisy’s eyes got really wide, and she took a sudden side-step away from the TV. I wish I had it on video, it was so funny.
So if Usher breaks in, she’ll save us, but if Animal is with him, I guess we’re toast.