dog intelligence

Question
QUESTION: Is it possible for a dog to look at a TV screen and understand that the image it is seeing is actually a true representation of something that's happening outside the home(ie c.c.t.v image)and react to it?

ANSWER: Hi, George,

Thanks for the question.

The ability to react to something like a photograph, a statue, or a picture on a TV screen requires certain levels of intellect that the dog's brain isn't capable of processing. It IS possible for dogs to react to the shapes and movements of images on the TV screen, just as some dogs will chase the light created by a laser pointer. Their brains are designed to respond to certain types of movement but they're not designed to think symbolically.

I hope this helps,

LCK

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thanks LCK,this is what i thought until I watched my uncle's little terrier.She sits on the settee and watches the TV screen(which is the cctv camera outside his house.The dog waits until it see's someone coming along the street and she then runs straight to the front door to get out and bark at them.The dog only barks at certain people when she's out in the garden and she can recognize these people from the camera image.She doesn't bother when she see's cars on the screen but when she see's someone she doesn't like,she goes crazy to get out the door to bark at them.I can't understand how this dog knows that the image on the TV,is what's actually happening,realtime,outside the house.Do you have any theories?I'm puzzled!!!

Answer
It could just be a more complicated version of a dog who hears a car in the driveway or the doorbell ringing and "knows" from experience that those particular sounds mean someone is going to come to the door. With this particular situation, one possible explanation would be that at some point the dog had an experience where the movement of a vertical image (humans move through space on a vertical axis) on the TV screen, with a very particular gait, speed, and movement was followed by her going outside and seeing someone with that same gait, etc. passing by. So now, when she sees certain types of images on the TV screen it would be something along the lines of hearing the doorbell ring.

Either that or she's an extraordinary dog.

LCK