TV Shows Designed For Dogs
A Q& A with the guy who invented DOGTV, a channel offering 24-hour television created especially for dogs!
Stay-at-home dogs around the world are being entertained by television programming designed especially to appeal to canines. The idea for TV programming for pets came to founder Ron Levi back in 2007 when he used to leave his cat, Charlie, home alone every day. Charlie seemed unhappy about it and Ron thought, I'm not here all day, but the TV set is! He downloaded some content from the Internet—fish, birds, etc.— and Charlie immediately reacted to it. Ron then learned that for years people have been leaving on TVs for their pets (57 percent in the US!) and that it's recommended by organizations like the Humane Society and ASPCA. “So the idea was,” Ron shares, “what if we created a channel in which all programs were designed specifically for dogs and the way they perceive the world?” Fast-forward 10 years and Ron’s channel for dogs, DOGTV, is now available in more than 120 million households in 14 countries across the globe. They offer three kinds of programming especially for stay-at-home dogs: Relaxation, which is content that is designed to relax your dog, reduce stress levels, and keep your dog calm with soothing music, sounds, and visuals; Stimulation, which is content that includes active camera movements, animations, moving objects, and lots of dogs to encourage your dog's playfulness when home alone; and Exposure, which is science-based programming involving special sounds and visuals to desensitize dogs to stimuli and situations that dogs are often afraid of, such as fireworks, thunder storms or doorbells. We asked Ron some questions about his fascinating programming for dogs.
Is DOG TV right for your dog? Read on to find out!
How do you create a show to appeal to dogs? What are the differences from regular for-people TV?
Although we know that many pets watch regular TV, like National Geographic or other channels, these channels weren’t designed for pets—they were designed for people. Dogs won’t enjoy hearing people talking, or loud commercial breaks, or seeing scary crocodiles, or news reports. DOGTV’s content is 100 percent designed for dogs, with no scary elements, no commercials, no visuals that they won’t enjoy seeing. It’s 100 percent tailor-made for dogs. For example:
Dogs see the world in different colours than we do. They only have two colour receptors, so they don’t see red or green. They see mainly blue, yellow, black, white, and shades of grey. DOGTV colours the content and does colour separation, putting emphasis on certain colours to help the dog see the visual image better.
The content is shot in a way that will help the dog relate to the visual content—cinematographers are filming from a dog’s point of view (they are on their knees); they shoot many times from a dog’s point of view, including installing a GoPro cam on the dog; they are taking in account backgrounds and locations, so the dog will see the image better; the objects are larger, due to the dog’s poor visual acuity; and so forth. The magic is mainly happening in the editing room, with the right colouring and editing, sound design, and music that was designed for dogs.