A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Hey, Leila, got a dog?
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
No, scared of dogs. You?
MARTÍNEZ: No, they're scared of me.
FADEL: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: But we know of dogs in the NPR family who enjoy their screen time. One editor's dog, Rico (ph) the wonder pup, was soothed by TV game shows.
FADEL: So what do our canine companions see when they look at a TV screen? And can they get the same engagement from what entertains us?
MARTÍNEZ: Scientists in Wisconsin have been looking for those answers.
FREYA MOWAT: You know, I'm a massive geek about dog behavior. I have my own dog, and he becomes the sort of pilot project for all sorts of thinkings and ideas.
FADEL: Freya Mowat teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MOWAT: I'm a veterinary ophthalmologist by trade. So I do see clinical patients with eye problems, anything except humans.
MARTÍNEZ: Mowat and her team surveyed more than 1,200 dog owners and found - maybe no big surprise - that dogs respond most to onscreen images of animals, especially other dogs.
FADEL: And about a week ago, The New York Times reported that one movie in particular seems to fascinate our four-legged friends.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FLOW")
MARTÍNEZ: Now, that's from the Latvian film "Flow," which won the Academy Award for best animated feature. There's no dialogue in the movie. It follows the journey of a black cat, a capybara, a dog, a lemur and a secretary bird as they try to survive a flood in a pretty barren world.
FADEL: And a quick search online turns up viral videos of cats and dogs fixating on "Flow," ears perked up, eyes locked on screen. One of our MORNING EDITION producers says she streamed the film at home and had never seen her dog more focused on the TV. Scientist Freya Mowat says it's an intriguing mix.
MOWAT: There are some natural sounds. There are some soothing musics. There's a lot of really beautiful colors that are used in their movie, by the looks of things. So the cat is black, and it's on this sort of colorful background. And if I think about how dogs see - you know, using their color vision - I think that exact contrast would be very visible to a dog.
FADEL: And why is this work important?
MOWAT: People laugh when I say I do this research. But then it gets people thinking because it makes them realize that there's a lot more than just showing dogs TV. You know, it's actually the animal some people spend the most time with, you know, so I think it's really meaningful to people. It's also very gentle and enjoyable content. So I think we all need a bit more tonic for the soul right now.
FADEL: I guess we're all trying to balance big news stories with gentle and enjoyable content.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE GREY AND JOSEPH PEACH'S "CAILLEACH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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