I spied on my dog when she was home alone with cameras. She’s weirder than I thought.

This is my dog, Heidi. She just turned nine this year.

I’ve had her since she was a couple of months old, so I know pretty much all of her quirks; she fakes going to the toilet correctly to get treats, munches on my hair to wake me up, and likes licking the floor under the bed when she’s bored — to name a few.

As someone who spends the majority of my time at home with my dog, I’d like to think I know all there is to know about her.

But I’ve always wondered what exactly she does when I’m away.

Does she hold conferences with the neighbour’s dog? Terrorise the other neighbour’s cats? Plot to overthrow the humans?

All I had to do was set up some cameras around the house, and my curiosity was soon satiated.

Dog, meet camera. Camera, meet dog.

The first camera I got was Philip’s Wireless Spotlight Camera.

This battery-powered camera gave me free rein over where I wanted to mount it, and I finally decided to position it facing my dog’s bed in the living room.

While this offered a fixed view, my second camera, Philips’s Indoor 360° Camera, allowed me to rotate and tilt the lens in real time so I could scope out the whole room.

My dog seemed to know what was up.

Lots of naps

The first thing my dog did with the cameras was to make me jealous.

Each time I checked in during the first few days, she was on the floor, napping. While I was at work, working.

How dare she.

She slept so soundly that I thought the camera froze, until I heard some light snores coming through the two-way talk feature.

One time, I used the voice feature on the camera to wake her up.

She started, stared in the direction of my room for a long while, then trotted around the house looking for the source of my disembodied voice.

It was easy for me to capture moments like these with the Philips cameras.

Just one tap of the “Record” or “Screenshot” button instantly saved what was onscreen into my phone’s photo album.

When the sun set and Heidi’s dark fur began blending in with the shadows, tapping the lightbulb icon on the Wireless Spotlight Camera helped brighten up the image.

The night vision feature allowed me to see in full colour at night too, which was enabled by the built-in motion-activated spotlight.

Self-entertainment

Now, staring blankly into space for more than five minutes would drive me crazy. So I’d always wondered how my dog went hours without any form of entertainment.

Turns out, she did have entertainment.

The camera’s motion detection recording automatically recorded any significant movement in front of the device, which allowed me to see this:

This video is now backed up on the cloud storage, for better or for worse.

Waiting

While she provided these amusing moments, they were few and far between.

Things were otherwise pretty normal — no epic expeditions to break into the treats cabinet, or plans to break out and party with the pets next door like in the movie “The Secret Life of Pets”.

Most of the time, she’d just wait.

Sometimes she’d even stare right at the camera, as if she was on to this little experiment I was carrying out.

But no matter what she did, she’d always go back to waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Waiting for the lift to chime, for the gate to screech open, for me to call out her name and tell her I’d been missing her too.

Philips Home Safety 5000 Series

If you don’t have a dog (or a cat, or a rabbit, or any other pet) you could always use the cameras to check in on humans instead, such as elderly folks or young children.

With 2K cameras, Philips’ Wireless Spotlight Camera and Indoor 360° Camera provide crisp images of the ongoings in your house, even when zoomed in.

The former can even be paired with a solar panel, so you can take it outdoors.

You can also keep an eye on the outside of your house with the Wireless Video Doorbell, which gives you a wide 160° view and night vision feature, and can be paired with the Doorbell Chime.

Check out the full Home Safety 5000 Series here.

So the next time you’re out and about, you can breathe a little easier knowing all is well back home.

This article made the writer want to spend more time with her dog.

Top images by Julia Yee