Pugs Excited about Xbox 360 Pug

Video Link (thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

Pugs excited about wrecking that flatscreen! :)
Zac

Potential damage to a very nice TV aside . . . I am actually pretty amazed by this behavior.

The pug (one of the dumber breeds of dog no less) seems to be clearly reacting to the cartoon version of pug on screen, and nothing else. Does he recognize it as a potential brother/rival? Does he react the same way to photos or noises? Do pugs have the necessary closure ability thought to be required to interpret a non-realistic cartoon as what it is supposed to represent?

In other words, maybe they aren’t as dumb as I give them credit for.
- Anonymous
  
  My pugs (one in-particular) like to get excited at any animal on TV, be it cartoon, puppet, or digital (and yes that includes the one w/ my xbox avatar). But will not bark at people on screen. We watch a lot of underwater shows since they don’t seem to get too excited by fish and the like.
- mdh
  
  i think he is scratching at it so he can continue to look at it, as pugs seem to only have an attention span while they are digging at something,
traalfaz

Realizing that the dog just scratched the crud out of your TV screen in 3…2…
- ColHapablap
  
  Yeah, really. That’s why you do this with work-issued laptops instead.
- Chesterfield
  
  Nah. If that’s a plasma screen (which it looks like it is), the dog won’t do anything to it. The plastic bezel might get scratched, but that’s about it.
  - floodslayer
    
    The makes me feel so much better Chesterfield. I was cringing the entire time thinking about it.
holtt

In a meta-pug response, our three pugs are getting excited hearing that pug get excited about a virtual pug.
- TJ S
  
  1) Record that
  
  2) Post to Boingboing
  
  3) Repeat
Bungle

The reason the dog is interested in the TV is because the pug is a

-short nose dog-

you will find that long nose dogs will be fascinated with things in the distance, where as flat nose dogs are likely to become obsessed with the television, and things in the foreground.
Suds

Why should humans be the only gamers? XBOX Kinect + Linux driver + Pug= Dog video games!