Do you know what TV shows your dog likes to watch the most?

[New Sancai Compilation and First Release] Have you ever wondered what your dog likes to watch most on TV?

Think nature documentaries, Lassie or the classic Scooby-Doo, a new study suggests.

Dogs are most engaged when watching videos featuring other animals, according to a new study recently published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.

The study is part of an overall effort to develop better ways to check canine vision, which researchers say is sorely lacking in veterinary medicine.

"The methods we currently use to assess vision in dogs have a very low threshold. For humans, it's the equivalent of saying 'yes' or 'no' if a person is blind." said researcher F. Freya Mowat says.

"We need more sensitive methods to assess dog vision and use the equivalent of a dog eye chart," Mowat added in the press release. "We hypothesized that video would have the potential to sustain a dog's attention long enough to assess vision. functionality, but we don’t know which types of content are most attractive to dogs.”

To find out what dogs like to watch, Mowat created a web-based questionnaire for dog owners around the world to report on their canine friends' TV habits.

The survey included questions about the types of screens in homes, how dogs interact with screens and the types of content that appeal to them most. Owners also described their dogs' behavior while watching the videos.

Unlike humans, the data shows that dogs are typically active when watching TV—running, jumping, vocalizing, and following action on the screen—rather than lying or sitting while watching TV.

Dog owners can also choose to show their dogs four short clips covering topics that may be of interest: panthers, dogs, birds and road traffic.

Based on more than 1,200 responses, the researchers concluded:

• Animal-themed video content is most popular with dogs
• Other dogs are by far the most attractive objects for “dogs” to watch
• Humans are not that interesting, ranking ninth out of 17 categories
• Age, eyesight linked to how much dogs interact with screens
• Sporting dogs and collies are more likely than other breeds to watch any kind of TV
• The movement on the screen strongly attracts the dog's attention

Mowat said the results will be used to develop video-based methods that can track changes in visual attention in dogs as they age.

"We know that poor vision can negatively impact quality of life in older adults, but the impact of aging and vision changes in dogs is largely unknown because we can't accurately assess it," Mowat said. "Like people, dogs live longer and we want to make sure we support them to live healthier lives too."

Mowat added that understanding how dogs' vision ages could also help the humans who share their homes.

"Of course, dogs live much shorter lives than their owners, and if there are new environmental or lifestyle factors that affect visual aging, it's likely that it will show up in our dogs decades before it does," Mowat explains. “Our dogs can be our sentinels—the proverbial coal mine dogs.”

(Compiled by: Wang Jimin)

(Editor: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: First published by Xinsancai)