It is more than a question of poor taste and boredom, it’s annoying and distracting.
I have two dogs and they do almost everything together (least the other one gets ahead in their alpha/beta relationship) but the Sheltie draws the line at even looking at the screen.
However the poodle does look and barks at everything that seems to have four moving legs or correctly positioned ears, or muzzle.
If the figure has some special coding or meaning (I don’t know what it is) she will pop around to the room behind the TV just to be sure there are no elephants or lions lurking there.
How can she see the TV action?
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
My cats were fascinated by the TV when they were kittens, but grew out of it (unlike myself). Now they totally ignore it, even if cats are meowing onscreen. The only thing that got their attention is once when someone yelled one of the cats’ names and she looked over.
On the other hand, when I was a kid we had a cat who LOVED Ed Sullivan and would watch the show, fascinated, every week.
The Sheltie backs her up against space aliens, squirrels, elves pushing leaves, cats across the street and a lot of other misc. stuff outdoors, why doesn’t he back her up for TV animals?
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
My cats pretty much ignore the TV, even when things I’d think would interest them (large cats, rodents, birds) are on.
The only thing they ever watched start to finish was a black and white Pluto cartoon that had no dialogue and in which the plot was basically that Pluto steals a larger dog’s bone. They both were just transfixed by it, which I found fascinating because Pluto bears only the faintest resemblance to anything canine. What did they think they were seeing? Why did it grab their attention? Was it peer pressure–did the one watch because the other was watching? Do I have too much time on my hands to wonder about this?
My parents actually bought a video that was specially made for cats: it’s 30 minutes of birds flying, squirrels (sp?) climbing trees, etc. They have a big screen TV and when they show the video the cats attack the screen and try to trap the birds and squirrels under their paws.
My parents too much time on their hands and too much disposable income.
My mother-in-law told my wife how enthralling “Teletubbies” were to our nieces. We decided to watch it on one slow weekend afternoon. We thought it was so much sugary drivel. But our shyest cat, Othello, who doesn’t pay any attention to the TV normally, stopped in his tracks, sat right in front of the TV, and watched the whole half-hour.
When it was through, he got up and went about his business.
My cats will definitely perk up when there’s birds or squirrels on TV. I think part of it is the noise - they ignore it until the bird starts to chirp, then they freak out.
I also used to have a cat who would sit on top of my monitor and go after the mouse pointer. Now THAT was cute!
These anecdotes are so fascinating they could easily be worked into a Marmaduke cartoon.
But I’m a little unclear as to whether there is a question here beyond “can my pet see images on television,” to which the answer would appear to be “yes.” Jois, would you care to rephrase your question, or shall I send this one to MPSIMS?
My cat will occasionally try to catch moving things on the screen. If there’s bird sounds, he’ll stalk the speakers. I’ve read that dogs can’t recognize 2-dimensional pictures. Once, when my old terrier was a pup, there was a shot of a journalist walking his dog. The guy on TV said, “Sit,” and Maxwell sat. Otherwise, he pays the TV no attention.
Once, shortly after a cat of mine had dropped a litter of kittens, my mother was watching an episode of The Waltons. On this episode, a female cat gave birth to a basket-full of kittens. The sound of all those kittens mewing fired up the maternal instincts of our new cat-mom, who meowed and searched for a way into the TV to get at the kittens. Poor thing was so confused…
Dogs not being able to see colors is a partial myth. Among many determinants of vision, the type of photoreceptors in the retina control sensitivity to light intensity or to color. Rod photoreceptors function better in low light conditions, while cone photoreceptors are better at distinguishing colors. Humans have more cones, dogs have more rods, however dogs do have sufficient cones to distinguish color. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily do distinguish color, but I think they do. I used to have a dog that seemed to have an aversion to the color red. He had two balls, one green, one red, but otherwise identical. He would only play with the green one. If I was holding both and threw the green one he would gleefully chase it down and return it. If I threw the red one he would start out, but turn back inquisitively and give me that what-are-you-trying-to-pull look. He chewed up his blue food bowl and we replaced it with a red one… he wouldn’t eat out of it. He would approach it, but back away and look up at us like “where’s my real dinner?”. There were other examples where he seemed to be demonstrating that he could differentiate red from other colors, as well.
As for TV, he loved it. We’d leave the TV on for him quite often. We’d leave the room and he’d be sitting there watching it. We’d return and he was still sitting there, fascinated. He seemed to prefer TV programs that had a lot of kids - he didn’t seem that interested in dogs on TV… go figure. Some animals on TV would make him bark - he hated alligators and snakes!
I think that it has something to do with the individual dog. I can’t speak for cats, but what does the dog think when he can’t smell something? Looking a two dimension image and understanding it is not that simple. Some dogs and cats can figure it out, and others can’t quite. My dog would totally ignore the TV, while my cousin’s (my dogs brother) would go nuts and chase every fly ball the Yankees hit. So maybe it is the intelligence of the individual rather than a yes or no for the species. (PS - maybe my dog didn’t like Sea Hunt, but he had a nicer personality).
Well, all these talks make me kinda curious. Dogs and cats are kind of above average in inteligence level in the animal world. But how would there TV viewing compare to that of a rat? Or a cow? Does anyone have any stories of there pet snake watching TV (I’ve heard that TV has effect on Tropical fish, but I can’t remember where)? Also, what about Chimps? They supposedly have the inteligence level of a three year old. . .but do they watch TV? Do they have favorite shows (I know I did, and I’m sure others had to)? Heh, I know my tone seems a little sarcastic here, but I’m dead serious. [ =<
My cats (bengals) generally ignore tv like it was it isn’t even there until one day I was wacthing a show on asian leopard cats (bengals are part asian leopard). They went NUTS! Started talking to the TV and just stared in fasination until the show was over.
Guess you just have to speak their language or show them something that interest them.
One time I videotaped my dog barking right into the camera, and when I played it back, he went crazy. He jumped at the screen, barking, and tried to get behind the TV to get that ‘other’ dog.
I also used to have a full length mirror, and every once in a while he would drop what he was doing to go investigate that ‘other’ dog. Of course, the ‘other’ dog would be looking right at him (which offended him greatly), and they would bark at each other until I told him to stop.
I miss that little guy
Rose
My cats never cared much about the TV. However, I got them to stalk the spot from a keychain laser once :D. BTW, I’m suprised noone’s mentioned that video from the early days of America’s Funniest Home Videos. You know the one: where a car race is on the TV, and the cat’s trying to catch the cars as they leave the side of the screen. That was one of few animal clips that I really thought deserved to be the winner.
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
My sister was once watching sheepdog trials on TV (no, she doesn’t know why she was watching that, either) when the sheepdog went off the edge of the screen. Her dog Kitty, who had been watching intently, went absolutely NUTS trying to figure out where the other dog went
