Why Can’t Dogs Recognize Us on Our Phones and Tablets?

Small screens, compressed signals, and canine nature may all affect whether a dog can identify its owner on the phone or in a video chat.

Dogs can recognize owners on a television screen, “but it’s a very bizarre place for your face to pop up and the rest of you is not there,” says Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist at Tufts University and chief scientific officer for DogTV, a television network designed for dogs. “Sometimes dogs seeing images on television of their owner will go to the back of the TV and see if there’s anyone on the other side of the screen,” Dodman says.

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Smaller screens, such as those found on cell phones or tablets, may make it “harder to recreate the world for the dogs because they’re smaller and the quality is more compressed,” says Ron Levi, chief content officer for DogTV.

Systems like iCPooch, which allows an owner to give an onscreen “hello” and dispense a dog a treat remotely, show some dogs do respond to smaller devices, but “it depends on the dog,” Levi says.

Some dogs seem less interested in images than other stimuli, Dodman says. With 220 million olfactory receptors in the canine nose–compared with a mere 5 million in a human–a dog may be far more intent on the scintillating scent of scat than a friendly face on a phone.

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