Does Your Dog Dig TV? College Uses Canine Couch Potatoes for Human Vision Insight – Opinion

What’s your dog’s must-see TV? Not to hound you, but University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Freya Mowat would like to know.

Every mutt is different. The Bernese Mountain Dog Theo loves to binge on the boob tubes. birds.

That revelation informs Freya’s research.

According to The Cap Times: A professor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine is studying canine TV viewing habits.

This information could change the world.

You could, it doggone!

These results may help to develop better ways for dogs to see, and to understand the factors that contribute to vision aging in humans and dogs.

Back to Theo, he tracks the birds’ movements and lunges toward the screen “as if he’s trying to say Hi.”

And that’s the kind of thing Freya — who also works in the School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences — needs to know:

“The goal is to figure out what content is universally most engaging for dogs.”

A survey that you can complete online will give her insight into your eyesight.

Here’s a sample:

• How many hours do your dogs spend outside or away from the house during a day of 24 hours?
• How many hours do your dogs spend on their own, not with other people or animals?
• What percentage of the time does your dog engage or watch any screen that is active in your home?

Some queries are multiple-choice:

What do you do to keep your dog entertained when you aren’t home?

• Dog-specific video/TV content is available (e.g. Subscribe to TV channels, or find other dog-content online
• You can watch regular TV/video content, not dog-specific.
• Listen to sounds, music or other media (e.g. radio)
• Make interactive toys
• Communicate with your dog using an interactive pet cam

And:

Is your dog able to react in the following situations or scenarios?

• When the screen is off, reflections of oneself or other objects will appear on it
• Mirror reflections of oneself or other objects
• Photos or videos of them (e.g. Video chats
• Pictures or video (e.g. via video chats
• Photos or videos of familiar people (e.g. via video chats

You can show four clips of your dog to complete the questionnaire and report on their reactions.

As for Telly binging in front of the telly, “It’s a fun thing to think about as a concept,” Freya figures. “What do our dogs watch when we watch TV? Are they watching it, too?”

But it’s more than just a pet project:

“[The information] tells us what we can do…in terms of developing health testing for our pets that’s actually meaningful.”

Presently, there’s a dearth of ways to appraise dogs’ perception:

“The ability to look more into the detail of what dogs can see is kind of a big black hole. There isn’t much nuance.”

But Freya’s on a path to improvement.

According to The Cap Times these studies could help stop human macular degeneration

By showing imagery that captures the pets’ attention, veterinarians and researchers can present them at different sizes or lighting exposures to determine the point in which they start to lose interest.

In creating a parallel way of tracking vision for their furry companions’ eyesight, Mowat said it can also help in her research on how human vision declines over time. …

Since dogs have shorter lifespans, Mowat said pets’ change in vision can serve as early indicators of how their owners’ eyesight may worsen as they age.

“We are exposed to things in the home that may be toxic to us, and it’s quite likely that those are also exposed to our pets because they share our home and lifestyle,” she said, using chemicals, soil contaminants and air pollution as examples. “It could well be that if we start to look at the pets, we’ll see a parallel trajectory. The environment of a person might also affect the dog as well.”

This is a win/win deal.

“We’re not just frivolously asking what dogs watch on TV. This has a deeper meaning to me, and it will have deeper implications on what we do as researchers. There’s a double benefit here.”

Others might believe that the idiot box is just for birds. But Theo’s into it:

Is your dog a snuggler on the sofa with you when you watch television on weekends? We want to hear all about your experience in the comments section. #dog #citizenscienceQuestion about Dog TV Watching Theo the Bernese LOVES birds on the TV….https://t.co/p04kZA9iLP#weekend #DogsofTwittter #doglife pic.twitter.com/7mIT2pNWdF

— MowatLab (@MowatLab) March 26, 2022

-ALEX

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