3 stimulating Netflix shows I put on for my pets when I leave the house

I never like to leave my family’s two cats, Benni and Comet, home alone for too long. For one, Comet is a young cat who likes to stalk the senior Benni like the Predator, and two, it just doesn’t feel great leaving my fur babies in a silent house.

So before I go, I’ve gotten into the habit of putting something on the TV, and not just something as background noise. Modern TVs can help with this, as dogs and cats process motion faster than we do, so while the old 60Hz tube TVs looked like strobing slideshows to them, today’s 120Hz panels look more natural. Plus, since they both see a limited color range—mostly blues, yellows, and grays—and their ears perk up at animal sounds, there’s a great selection of Netflix shows available for U.S. customers that pets (well, mine anyway) seem to enjoy. There’s even a whole genre dedicated to them: Stuff for Dogs to Watch—Squirrel!

Below, though, are three of my pets’ favorites, with my top pick being a viral phenom that my cats stare at.

Penguin Town

Patton Oswalt narrates this series that keeps pets glued to the screen

It’s always funny when animals display traits that are uniquely human, and it’s even funnier when there’s expert narration from a comedian (Patton Oswalt) who knows just how to draw that humor out. Penguin Town is a 2021 docuseries on Netflix that I’ve watched all the way through myself—with and without my cats. It follows a community of endangered African penguins who’ve taken over Simon’s Town, a seaside town south of Cape Town, South Africa.

Making themselves at home among the town’s residents, the penguin families nest under wheelbarrows, in culverts, and in courtyards, and each is cleverly named for the spot it occupies. Oswalt treats each one as its own sitcom family. Not that your pets will follow all the drama and comedy, but the series tracks the Bougainvilleas, an older couple of “soul mates”; the Culverts, a pair of newlyweds preparing to start a family; the Wheelbarrows, parents raising their four chicks; and more.

For pets, the show’s eight half-hour episodes are full of waddling, squawking, and splashing, set against a backdrop of bright ocean blues and other vibrancies that keep eyeballs on the screen.

Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough

Nature’s soundtrack, tuned for better ears than yours

When I put this incredible three-part Netflix docuseries on for my pets for the first time, I’d never seen so many perky ears in my life. And while the 2024 series, which was a joint U.K. and Canadian production, is visually stunning, too, it’s the audio of Secret World of Sound that is instead front and center here.

Using ultra-sensitive microphones and laser vibrometers to capture sounds and noises that us humans rarely notice (or even know existed in the first place), Secret World of Sound explores how creatures across the natural world—big and small—use sound. “Hunters and Hunted,” for example, follows Manitoba’s great grey owls as they hear and hunt for the small voles living beneath the snow, and how the latter use their ears to avoid being eaten. That same episode gets insanely close to England’s buff-tailed bumblebees who use a specific tone (D, actually) when they vibrate their bodies to dislodge hidden pollen from a nightshade flower.

The nature show’s episodes are full of roaring lions, bugling elk, singing gibbons, and dolphins using sonar clicks to locate fish hiding at the bottom of the sea. Dogs and cats can hear way more than we do, and this soundtrack (accompanied by David Attenborough’s silky narration) is alive with animal noises that give them plenty to investigate.

Sealook

The goofy seals behind social media’s pet-watching craze

My top pick comes from Korea’s Million Volt and The Pinkfong Company, and in case you’re not familiar with the latter (or don’t have kids), they’re the folks behind Baby Shark, so they know a little something about drawing attention, even from your pets. Sealook made its debut on YouTube in 2022, but it was its arrival on Netflix US in October of 2025 that paved the way for its viral explosion among pet owners.

Not originally developed for pets, owners (myself included) noticed that the basic colors—largely blues, yellows, and grays—of the show’s chubby seals, fish, landscapes, and ocean scenery are in the perfect spectrum for what dogs and cats see best. There’s no dialogue (only seal “arfs” and various other quirky noises), and the episodes are strung together with adorable and hilarious bite-sized shorts that you will also undoubtedly find yourself watching, too.

With 10 episodes available to stream, each roughly 13 to 14 minutes long, your pets will enjoy Seal 001’s tongue-clicking habit, a beatboxing Seal 013, and Seals 002 and 010 who try everything they can to start a dance party. Seriously, your pets might like it, but if not, you’re going to binge the whole series either way.

Give your pets something worth watching

Leaving the house? Put on the sure-fire Sealook first, keep Penguin Town and Secret World of Sound queued up, and your pets will have company until you get home. But who knows, maybe they’re more into Netflix comedies or movies instead—we have roundups of those on How-To Geek as well.