Pets 4 home entertainment: Welcome to the world of TV for cats and books for dogs

Many of us are at least partly addicted to streaming services... and now your pets can be too. The entertainment market for animals now includes Amazon Prime, Spotify and Audible, writes Laura M Holson

Even though sound waves and frequencies affect animals, being with their owners is what they want most (Getty)

This is a story about Opie and Karma. Most days, the two cats cuddle on a bed at the home of Aray Till, a freelance creative director in Saratoga Springs, New York. Recently, though, they have been transfixed by the sound of chirping birds in the living room downstairs, and the sight of blue jays sparring over seeds on the TV. Opie swats the glass, while Karma sits upright, a vigilant sentry.

Till says this is all thanks to “cat TV” on Amazon Prime, a library of videos and movies featuring birds, squirrels and other creatures that were made to entertain felines.

Opie and Karma aren’t the only ones amused. “My in-laws were here recently and we put on cat TV,” Till recalls. “There were five adults, one child and two cats watching. It was a nice meditative break from the daily news.”

Pet owners have long turned to classical music and Animal Planet to distract overactive canines and bored kittens. But with the proliferation of streaming services, entertaining furry companions has gone high tech.

Last month, Spotify announced new playlists for cats, dogs and their musically inclined owners. Audible, the streaming book service, has collaborated with Cesar Millan, the television personality better known as the “dog whisperer”, to recommend books for pups. And Amazon Prime’s offerings, with its squabbling squirrels and chattering raccoons, have found prominence on social media, where owners post videos of their cats riveted by the onscreen action.

“I’ve never seen her much interested in a bird,” Sam Jacobs says of her 10-year-old cat, Billie. But after Jacobs heard about cat TV on Instagram, she turned it on and Billie “sat perfectly still, watching, which she never does”.

Owners have been posting videos of their cats riveted by onscreen action (Getty) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

If cats are finally catching on, hounds were ahead of the pack. In 2012, the first television channel for dogs debuted. DogTV, which also offers a streaming service, was devised to soothe separation anxiety and stimulate canines who were left alone. A year later, a study in the journal Animal Cognition showed that dogs could pick out the faces of other dogs on a computer screen.

Around the same time, the industry for pet products was exploding. Last year, for example, Americans bought $72bn worth of food, supplies and toys for their pets. It’s no surprise that streaming services also want to cater to this lucrative market.

‘But the animal only wants one thing, the human. They are thinking, ‘Where is Bob?’’

Dr Nolan Zeide

Spotify surveyed 5,000 pet owners from Britain, Australia, Spain, Italy and the United States before releasing its pet-centric playlists. More than seven in 10 pet owners surveyed said they had played music for their furry friends. Almost half of the owners believed that music helps relieve their animal’s stress.

Audible’s recommendations for dogs debuted in 2017 and feature Millan. The recommendations, though, are hardly scientific. According to Audible’s website, they are based on an anecdotal study of 100 volunteers who were given Amazon Echo devices and asked to record their dogs’ responses to hearing books on the device. (Audible is owned by Amazon.)

Among Millan’s recommendations is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, read by actress Sissy Spacek. Millan warns that dogs need to be in a post-exercise, relaxed state to respond to audiobooks, adding that voice and consistency are important, along with sounding like the pet’s owner.

“Audible is not going to get your dog tired,” Millan says. “They have to exercise. If you put on television when your dog is nervous, it is going to remain nervous.”

Indeed, watching birds or squirrels onscreen is no substitute for the outdoors. “At least if they are outside and see a squirrel, they can smell or dig,” Millan says. “And dogs want to be with their own kind. They would never go to Best Buy and get a television.”

Dr Nolan Zeide, a vet in Stamford, Connecticut, says sound waves and frequencies do affect animals, but that being with their owners is what they want most.

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Households with pets in the UK (RSPCA)

“I know there are people who believe Animal Planet makes their cat or dog feel better,” Zeide says. “But the animal only wants one thing, the human. They are thinking, ‘Where is Bob?’”

Grace Bonney stumbled across cat TV on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago when she was looking for something to watch while her dog recuperated from knee surgery. To be clear, Bonney wanted a show for herself, not her dog. She is an author and bird watcher. And she was curious about what shows Amazon offered cats.

Cat TV on Amazon Prime is a library of videos and movies featuring critters (Getty/iStock) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

They are hilarious because there is so much drama, like anything you’ve seen on Bravo,” she says. Birds squabble and slap each other with their wings. Raccoons wander under cover of night. In one show, a hawk terrorises burrowing rodents.

Bonney, who is known as @designsponge on Instagram, decided to share her discovery with her followers. “I got 400 direct messages from people totally thrilled to find this out,” she says.

Friends complained to her because Amazon Prime did not offer certain videos in Canada. “Now, I’m versed in how to find bird videos on YouTube,” Bonney says. “One woman placed a chair in front of the TV to make her cat comfortable.”

Bonney’s cat, Turk, and dog, Winky, were unfazed by cat TV. “I was watching a movie about grizzly bears and they responded to that,” she says. “And foxes.”

Mostly, though, Bonney says the videos were a welcome distraction from the real world. “When you are watching birds and chipmunks fight over a corncob, it makes you stop thinking about impeachment,” she says, referencing the Senate trial of President Donald Trump. “It slows down whatever is happening. The footage is so relaxing, almost melodic.”

Jacobs, a seasonal sweet buyer, says her black short-haired cat Billie mostly sleeps and ignores her family. “She just sticks to herself,” she says. Not any more. Recently, Billie jumped on an ottoman and, for 10 minutes, stared down a bird on cat TV. “It was unusual,” Jacobs says.

Not to Zeide. “The cat is looking at the bird feeder and you know what it is thinking,” he says. “It wants to eat that bird. It’s not relaxing for them at all.”

© New York Times