Dogs to Get Their Own 24-Hour TV Channel

The commercial-free channel on America's largest satellite network features short videos that relax, stimulate, and expose home-alone dogs to various movements, objects and sounds "all from a dog's point of view," according to the channel’s website.

Get ready for a new TV channel — for your pooch.

Beginning in August, DirecTV will unleash Dog TV, a 24-hour channel aimed at dogs when their owners are out of the house.

It's billed as the first channel of its kind and launched a test version in San Diego last year that reached 483,000 homes in California's second-largest city.

The commercial-free channel set to be picked up by America's largest satellite network features short videos that relax, stimulate, and expose home-alone dogs to various movements, objects and sounds "all from a dog's point of view," according to the channel’s website.

In videos on the channel's YouTube page, dogs can be seen playing with each other in a corn field and lying peacefully around with soothing music in the background.

“Regular TV is bad for dogs,” Ron Levi, the founder and producer of Dog TV, told NBC's "Today" show. “It’s like the Fourth of July all year round."

Levi, a cat owner in Israel, said he came up with the idea for Dog TV after seeing his cat Charlie look sad every morning he left to work.

To test the effect of the videos, Levi partnered with Tufts University in Boston to install cameras in homes where dogs were left alone for eight hours a day watching Dog TV.

The research showed dogs that watched the “mellow” animal-centric TV were calmer and happier when their owners came home.

The channel is now available in some Time Warner and Cox TV plans, and Dog TV is now selling subscriptions to their website. It will be available for DirecTV subscribers on August 1.

Levi, who doesn't own a dog himself, said his next plan is to build a "cat channel."
 

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