My dog's name is Bullseye. Everytime I watch Toy Story 2, he starts tripping out trying to figure out who's saying his name.

Anybody else ever have anything like that happen? It's pretty funny.

I'm surprised your dog "knows" his name. Most dogs respond to the "timbre" by which you call his name. If you really listen closely, you say his name completely different from anything else. Dogs have super hearing (my dog can literally hear my car a block away and goes to the door, my family has seen it happen). Just for kicks, make a total conscious effort to wait until he's not facing you and just say his name in a totally wack voice.

We had a dog once that could respond appropriately to about 20 different words/phrases (my Mom counted one day). If you said "supper" and she would go to the kitchen . . . if you said "outside" she would go and wait at the door . . . if you said "got to bed" and she would . . . well . . . go to bed. Smart little suckers.

Never had one respond to a word on the TV, although when I was younger and we had the "Bowling" video game for our Atari 2600, one of our dogs would chase the little square ball across the TV screen every time you bowled.

I had a dog who knew my cats by name.

If I would yell at one of the cats -- like "Bo! Get off of the table!" -- the dog would come into the room and start barking at that cat. She tried to boss the cats around.

Smart dogs can understand words and watch TV. Stupid dogs cannot. Unfortunately, most breeds have had the brains bred out of them in favor of exaggerated looks or instinctual behaviour.

My dog LOVES TV (and of course, DVD ). She especially loves when she sees or hears other dogs on there. She even recognizes cartoon dogs as being dogs... regardless of how strange or unrealistic they look to me.

edit: adn FWIW, sound makes no difference for her either... lol

I have a 5 yr. old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and she reacts to the TV all the time. Noises like car alarms, sirens, other dogs, or low frequency stuff like thunder, explosions, or just heavy bass always set her off. Even funnier is that she reacts to the visuals as well. If there's an animal on screen she'll run to the TV and bark at it (which is a major problem since she's in the habit of putting her front paws up on the screen while she does this and we have a $5000 HDTV that we'd prefer to keep scratch-free). She's incredibly smart when it comes to stuff like this. She can sit on the couch in front of the TV all night and not make a peep, and the instant a commercial starts that she doesn't like (dog food ads are familiar favorites), she'll know right away and get pissed off - all it takes is for her to hear the first sound or see the first second or two and she immediately knows it's the one she hates. I've had dogs all my life and never had one that reacts to TV the way she does. People are always saying that dogs and cats can't actually see images on television like humans can--supposedly they can only see a big flashing light blur since their brains are incapable of translating the pixels/frames--and that what they're really doing is just reacting to the sounds they hear with their superior sense of hearing, but my dog completely dispells that myth. She reacts to images on any of my televisions--HDTV or standard, color or B&w, big screen or small screen--with the sound turned on or off. One other funny thing I noticed is that of all the various animals that set her off, she couldn't care less about apes. I thought that was pretty strange indeed until I hit upon the idea that maybe she just takes them for really hairy people (or Robin Williams naked).

My dog HATES credits. She growls and barks at the screen whenever the final list of names rolls.

my dog is pretty smart for being under 8 months old. he knows outside, if you ask him if he wants a treat he will go right to where they are. the fun part is to move them around every so often to keep him on his toes. he finds them every time. plus he knows all the standard stuff. ie; sit,lay down,etc.

when he goes outside he has a ball that he likes to take out with him. if he comes back in and leaves the ball outside all I have to say is "your ball" and he will run back in the yard and get it. he also knows what his frisbee is, too. I tell him to get it and he does.

he was also housebroken within 4 accidents.

the first time my dog heard a bark come from the tv he was looking around trying to find the dog behind the tv. now if he hears it he doesn't do anything. I guess he learned there isn't a dog in that big box.

My friends have to be careful when they watch Shreck. Their dog loves the donkey.

Keep her away from the director's guild.

my dog's a mutt, and he's a genuis. he's also a 70 pound mama's boy... when "scary music" comes on in movies, he runs to the couch and tries to curl up and "hide" on my lap. lol

he also reacts with droopy tail and ears when he hears tub water on the tv.

My dog is a mix bred and is pretty smart too. She doesn't watch TV much because Seinfeld is off the air.

thats why my dog started to watch tv.

I resuced my dog from a shelter....250 miles away from my home. he was 3 months old and had been there for 3 weeks. saw his face on-line through petfinder.com. he is now 10 months old. his name is Roscoe and he is a rottweiler/german shep mix.

he loves animated features....his fav being Iceage. he is ALWAYS trying to attack the creatures in the film.

I have him trained well so far. he is being schooled in personal protection and is currently in class for the "corner and hold" command. he is the best protection my dvd library could hope for.

he's also a spoiled brat....I give him tons of love and let him pretty much control the house and property. the best dog I've ever owned.

edited to add: yeah...everytime a dog is barking in the surround speakers...he goes ballistic.

My dog made the most insightful comment about the affect of rapid-fire media on the adolescent attention span and it's future impact on the maximum practical length of feature films.

Then it sniffed the cat's butt . . .





BTW, here in Charlotte, we get Seinfeld two times a day (back to back), five days a week. Woo-hoo! Even better "The Contest" episode is coming on next week . . . one of their best ever . . .

To all above

My dog is a mutt too. He's about 9 years old but I've had him less than a year. His owner was an ass and went out and bought more dogs. When they didn't get along he decided to get rid of the one that had seniority so now I have him. He has seperation anxiety and doesn't like to be left alone. He actually escaped a few days after I got him and was gone for 8 days (presumably looking for his old owner). I was amazed that he found his way back after only being here a few days and being gone for that long. His feet were cut up so he must have been on the run the whole time. He's spoiled to death now though. He used to be an outside dog but I let him stay in the house. He hasn't made an escape attempt since then. The weird thing about him is he never, EVER barks. I haven't heard him bark one single time. He makes other sounds but no barking.


He only responds to the TV when Toy Story 2 is playing and only to Tom Hanks voice. When another character says it he doesn't respond at all. He can be sleeping within a couple feet of the subwoofer and doesn't even respond to explosions. He's mostly a 100 pound speed bump most of the time.

My dog loves to watch DVDs. Provided, of course, there's an insert.

Same with mine, and he can barley stand forced trailers. He barks at the screen until the Menu appears.

I have a shiba inu - one of the smartest breeds out there. In fact Goten is almost too smart. He not only watches TV, but he sits on the couch with his back against a cushion, just like a little furry person. He reacts to his name on tv when we watch Dragonball Z. He also growls at The X Files. I"m not really sure why. Maybe he's involved in some conspiracy.