Hi Humans,
So, how did you enjoy National Pet Week? I hope you and pet dog had a great time. I also hope you gave him extra love and care because he deserves it! Here’s this week’s top 4:

1. Audience. The best thing about broadcasting content for dogs is that you earn a lot of unintended-audiences in the process. Although we have spent approximately four years researching and creating content specially for dogs, we are thrilled to see many cats (and humans) joining the viewing party.

I love cats. I really do. In fact, my cat, Charlie, inspired the whole idea for DOGTV. One day, I keep promising him, we’ll work on CAT TV. But, for now, cats will have to settle for DOGTV. I f you go on YouTube, it is interesting to see all the videos of cats watching DOGTV.

I wonder if dogs and cats have to fight over the remote. I hope they don’t because I especially love seeing dogs and cats getting along and playing together. Check out this touching video. It’s really PAWesome.

2. Actors. As you may have noticed, we feature many children (and some adults) on DOGTV. In fact, even when there isn’t a child on screen, you can often hear children talking in the background saying “good dog” and such. This is because dogs can relate to the energy of children, which scientists call the human-dog connection. I invite you to read this great scientific research from Lorand University in Hungary titled “Owner’s Beliefs on the Ability of their Pet Dogs to Understand Human Verbal Communication: A Case of Social Understanding.” This research demonstrates the strong verbal communication dogs and their owners share and is a great example on how to use humans and language when creating content for dogs.

By the way, we prefer to always choose real, non-acting dog owners who know how to authentically speak to dogs. This is why there are only real people and not actors on DOGTV, which is great for some dogs who don’t like actors, like this one who hates Leonardo DiCaprio.

 

3. Elections. The 2012 US elections will take place in November and it seems that the dogs will be brought to the game, with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pulling out the story of young Barack Obama eating dog meat in Indonesia. And, the story of Romney and his dog Seamus came out, when the Republican put his Irish Setter on the roof of his car.

These dog-related stories are not new. Last year, I visited an exhibition in Washington, D.C. titled “First Dogs.” about American presidents and their dogs. In the exhibition, you see pictures and stories of 23 presidents and their dogs including Roosevelt, who accidentally left behind his Scottish Terrier when visiting the Aleutian Islands. Roosevelt was accused of spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to retrieve his dog. At a speech following this event, Roosevelt said, “you can criticize me, my wife and my family, but you can’t criticize my little dog. He’s Scotch and all these allegations about spending all this money have just made his little soul furious.”

Oh, in case you are wondering, there are currently no plans to have Romney host a show on DOGTV.

4. Labs. Labrador Retrievers are great dogs. For 21 years straight, Labs have been America’s most popular dog, way before German Shepherds, Beagles and Snooki. Still, Labradors have never won the Westminster Dog Show, the oldest dog competition in the world. I wonder why this is …. What is this great dog lacking? Send us ideas and suggestions and perhaps we can make history and turn America’s No. 1 dog into a winner.

I hope you and your dogs are getting used to our DOGTV Player, which lets you enjoy DOGTV anywhere, anytime. Check it out and let us know what you think about it.
Have a great week,