Dogs can't see 2D images

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

From the thread Are dogs unable to see 2-D images (mirrors, photos, TV)?.

This classic column kinda bugged me, as it’s one where Cecil just says “Nah, it’s the opposite of what you think”, without even giving a serious suggestion for why the questioner may have been mistaken.

When I’ve pointed a dog (or cat) in the direction of a TV or mirror, they have been completely disinterested, like Christopher’s.

I’d WAG that it’s some combination of:

[ul]
[li]Smell: Given how powerful their sense of smell is, and the fact that smell is associated with base emotions, perhaps it is smell that alerts a dog to the presence of someone else in the room.[/li][li]Hearing: Their hearing is better than ours too. TV barks might sound wrong to their ears.[/li][li]Learning: The TV cries wolf enough times that they get fed up of it. Knowing how dumb dogs are though, I’d put this as the least likely option.[/li][/ul]

Ask for why some dogs do react to TVs…perhaps they are just more vision-oriented than their peers :confused:

2

Yeah, I’d go with that theory. A dog might be able to see something on the TV, but if doesn’t smell like it then he’s not all that interested.

That’s just a guess, of course. But they are far more reliant on senses other than sight than we are.

My dog is uninterested in the TV, but I have met dogs who do react to it. So it’s a case-by-case thing.

3

Complete crap. I had a beagle that sat on my lap and watched Disneys animal shows every Sunday. She preferred the coyote or wolf shows, but watched them all.
When our shepherd died, we had the Westminister show on TV. When the shepherds were brought out she jumped off my lap and ran up to the TV. She tried to lick the screen. My wife was crying through it all.

4

:confused:
Neither I nor Candyman74 claimed that all dogs are disinterested in TV. I was disputing the column’s implied claim that all dogs are interested in TV.

5

Complete crap. I have a dog who isn’t interested in TV.

Or - who on earth are you arguing against? Nobody said your dog wasn’t interested in TV. I just said mine wasn’t, and posited a theory as to why.

6

I rather think gonzomax was labelling the claims in the original correspondence to Cecil as “complete crap”.

7

Correct. The idea that dogs can not see three D images was disproven by Snoopette. She liked to watch animal TV and would watch a whole show, even an hour long.

8

Whenever there was a dog on the telly the terrier I spent my teens with was very interested, but never if there was another kind of animal.

9

When we had my long-haired dachshund, Max, we literally could not watch any shows with animals in them, because as soon as they came on the screen he would run toward the screen, barking at them and trying to “catch” them as they ran off the side of the screen.

He also liked to watch baseball. He wasn’t that interested in the game until there was a man on 2nd base. We would tell people this and they would think we were crazy until they saw it for themselves. Obviously, my dog did not understand baseball (we think). But when a man would be on 2nd base, the camera from centerfield would be focusing on the pitcher/batter, but the baserunner would be seen moving off the screen (taking his lead toward third base) and then back onto the screen. Max would chase the runner every time he left the screen. It was so hilarious, and was actually much more entertaining then the game. We would often put a game on and just root for a double so the fun could begin.

10

This week PBS broadcast a Nova show called Dogs Decoded. [You can Google it for the transcript and buy the DVD]

Professors and researchers from around the world [Duke, Cornell, Lincoln in UK, Hungary and Russia] running cognitive experiments to demonstrate that dogs evolved often in response to emotional interaction with human facial expressions (especially the whites of our eyes.)

They hooked up dogs to the visual sensors Internet marketing people put on humans for web studies. The sensor watch the subject’s pupil and determines where on the web page the user’s eye lands first, second, third, et cetera. Scientist also hook up people with these sensors to fMRI and see what part of the brain lights up when shown pictures, videos, et al.

So I nearly fell of the chair when they attached pupil sensors to the dogs and showed them large pictures (and videos?) of human faces. Clearly (according to the show anyway) the dogs attention went to the left side of peoples faces… the more emotive side. Multiple instances of visual recognition shown on a show usually produced to some scientific standards.

My dogs don’t seem to react to videos of people they know (or phone calls with the kids voices.) Since my friend’s cats clearly do react to the TV and audio recordings I wonder if we are just using the wrong video refresh rate, or are clipping off the audio peaks that the dogs need for differentiation.

Flack

11

My parents’ cat liked to watch figure skating on TV. But other than that, he never had any reaction to anything on TV or on a recording.
Powers &8^]

12

I read somewhere (long forgotten where, unfortunately) that dogs are extremely far-sighted, and that they use their sense of smell for nearby exploration.

In observing my own dogs, that seems to bear out: They seem very alert to people and other dogs from a distance, and even able to distinguish familiar individuals from those they haven’t met. Yet when working at close range, they have troubles for which poor vision is a very plausible explanation – such as struggling for a couple of seconds to find a treat tossed on the floor less than a foot away from them.

If it’s true, this may explain the TV thing as well: The images on screen are just too blurry for the dog to react to.

13

As another anecdote, my poodle barks at dogs walking past while he’s in the car (while we’re driving). There’s no way in hell he can smell or hear (when they’re just quietly walking on the sidewalk) them.

Farsightedness might explain this behavior.

14

I would guess that socialization plays some role in this as well. I can imagine a dog learning to respond to a dog on TV if the master continually said, “Look Fido, another doggie!” Or if other signals are given. My limited experience of pets is that younger animals will show a little interest in the TV and in their own reflections but that this goes away when they grow up–I suppose they learn there’s no food or fun there.

I also recall reading that some of TE Lawrence’s Arab friends didn’t “get” drawings, that they were 2D representations of objects in life; and that when Robert Flaherty projected “Nanook of the North” for an Eskimo audience, they did not understand what they were seeing–it was just light and shadow to them. It’s not all that surprising that animals might have a similar difficulty.

15

Good one. Dogs do seem very open to suggestion and association. If every time I held my dog up to a mirror I made an apparent fuss I’ve no doubt he’d see a mirror as being significant or even threatening.

(This is not to suggest that the above posters have been unconsciously directing their pets, merely that it could be a part of the picture)

16

I had a dog who knew how a mirror works and if I looked at him through it, he would look back at my reflection, into my eyes (not at my actual body and ignoring the mirror like all my other dogs have done).

17

I had a Scotty that would only react to other dogs on TV if the dog was recorded on low-fidelity video tape (ala America’s Funniest Home Videos). Professional taping of dogs received no attention whatsoever, but some show that featured a bunch of puppies recorded on a Sony hand-held video camera circa 1995… that always got Ferg’s attention.

18

Mine have reacted violently to other dogs on TV but they have also gotten upset with alligators, elephants, cats, and especially dinosaurs on TV, Horses, not so much.

19

My dog Rosie, a very smart girl, looks in mirrors at me behind her in a room (and looks at her brother dog), and then she’ll turn around and run to me. She doesn’t look try to look behind the mirrors, even though one is a full-length propped against a wall, where she COULD look behind it. She clearly knows that what she sees is a reflection of us behind her in the room. She loves to do that.

My current dog, Roy, is an avid TV watcher. He watched the movie Babe in the City for over an hour, standing up at times and barking at the screen, then sitting down again. He loves anything with animals. Any kind of animals…even fish. He has favorite commercials that when he hears the intro music, he comes running to watch the bunny rabbit or snake or raccoon or whatever. My former dog watched TV, too, though not to the same extent. Still, he watched over an hour’s worth of 101 Dalmations.

Rosie isn’t interested in TV at all. She sees it, she sees that Roy likes it, but she looks at me questioningly, as if to say, “What’s up with Roy and that big box?”

It could be as simple as, some dogs are interested in TV, some are not. Like people. It’s not eyesight…Rosie has better eyesight than Roy. It’s not a love of other animals…Rosie is the social butterfly w/other animals, not Roy. It’s not intelligence…again, Rosie is smarter.

Roy has no interest in mirrors. Even when I’m grooming him in front of a full-length mirror, his eyes merely scan across the mirror, and he shows no interest in it at all. All of my dogs, except Rosie, have been that way.

So I’m glad his post clarified this point. I’ve heard for years that dogs can’t make out TV or mirror images, but clearly, some of my dogs could. So I knew that that had to be a myth!

20

Anecdote: I occasionally watch videos of cute cats on youtube. Back when my feline overlords were allowed in the house, they’d stop what they were doing and give me odd looks if they heard the sound of meowing from the laptap, especially if the cat was making distress noises.

Also, try looking up “cat” and “mirror” on youtube, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of links.