Radio on (quietly) for the cat in our bedroom, if only to provide some stimulation. If she wants quiet, there are other rooms she can sleep in.
There is indeed Dog TV. They had a free preview on our satellite TV service recently and I watched a little of the programming.
It consisted of landscape/nature scenes with “soothing” music, along with videos of dogs looking relaxed (i.e. not barking, chasing things or mating with random objects or each other). It looked like even dogs would get bored with it pretty quickly.
My dogs have mostly ignored TV, except for one spaniel (same breed and colors as on the Dog TV homepage) who got into African nature shows. She had a weird aversion to monkeys, and once went berserk over an ad showing an orangutan wearing a Walkman.*
*yes, this was long ago.
This is a bit misleading - dogs hear a wider range of high frequency sounds than humans (cats hear both higher and lower frequencies than we), but they don’t hear things “louder” than we do. They can pick up sounds farther away than humans can, but that is largely due to the shape and mobility of their ears. Dogs have up to 18 muscles to control each ear, allowing them to fine tune their directional hearing and pick up sounds better. Most non-human mammals have significantly better directional ear control than we measly 2 leggers.
That said, repeatedly exposing any mammal to repeated loud noise will, over time, decay hearing ability. Leaving a TV or radio on at a reasonable volume will not have any long term effect.
One of my dogs has extreme separation anxiety. For him, we leave the TV on a low setting, and rotate a selection of toys. It still doesn’t completely prevent the random destruction of kleenex boxes, or, say, my fancy purple boots that I forgot to put away, but it does seem to help.
Some dogs don’t need it, but I think for others it’s part of a comforting routine. I probably wouldn’t bother unless your dog is showing signs of anxiety or stress that you’re gone during the day.
For years, I’ve turned the radio off when I left for work, but recently I started leaving it on at a low volume because my older dog seemed to be developing some separation anxiety and was stressing about my leaving. I’ve heard it can help with that. I did a few other things as well (calming supplement and pain meds), and he seems to be a bit better and there is less destruction when I get home now.
You can hear the radio on the main floor, but if the dogs want peace and quiet, they can always go upstairs to sleep.
Great information Doctor Jackson. Thank you. Appreciate all your posts. When I’m home I do keep the TV/music to lower level unless I’m watching a movie. Then I may turn it up a tad more.
If someone has a dog that is very timid and doesn’t like louds sounds they might like it quiet . There are shows made for pets that like to watch TV .
Does your dog show any interest in the TV or radio when it on?
I only have a cat and he sleeps most of the day anyway so I don’t leave anything on when I leave for work. Though I do leave a couple of windows open to air out the place and most days when I get home the cat is up in the kitchen window staring outside and listening to the birds.
Cat TV.
My dog doesn’t show any interest in the TV whatsoever. He doesn’t seem to be dealing with any type of anxiety issues (other than the car … which he hates). I do go home for lunch every day and take him for a walk or let him outside to hang out. So that helps break up his day a bit.