The world as seen in the eyes of a dog will be in white and in different shades of grey. You see, dogs were once believed to have no ability to distinguish colors. Dogs are highly valued for their ultrasensitive senses. A dog’s sensitive scenting and hearing abilities is what makes them outstanding guard dogs. Sighthounds are breeds highly valued for their excellent vision. Dogs are claimed to have the ability to see better in the dark as well . As long as a dog is on guarding duty, people can sleep soundly at night.

Nature has endowed our furry friends with very sensitive senses but the ability to see colors in the same way humans can was left out. Dogs can actually see colors but in a different way than what we humans can do. Canine vision was studied in the University of California and it was proven that although a dog’s capability to see colors is not as detailed as human’s, dogs can indeed see colors. Of course due to the less detailed vision, a dog may not be able to appreciate a bright red ball given that in the eyes of the dog the color of the ball would either be black or brownish gray.

It is said that the genetics of dogs and humans are similar. Similar to humans, a dogs eye has special cells called cone photoreceptors that controls color perception by catching the light. A dog’s eye only has two cone photoreceptors while humans have three. The three cones in the central part of the human retina give humans 100% full range vision while the two cone types in a dog’s eye deliver only about 20 % range of color vision. This makes a dog’s vision about six times inferior than what we humans have.

In the eyes of Fido the rainbow colors would be blue, light blue, grey, light yellow, brownish yellow and dark grey instead of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The world, as seen by the dog will be in yellow, grey and blue colors. In spite of the limited colors seen, a dog has the surprising ability to differentiate the subtle change in colors that creates various shades of violets and blues.

Humans cannot see the slight change in the shades of violet and blues because of the yellow pigmentation that obstructs short wavelengths and lessens the eyes’ sensitivity. The absence of the yellow pigmentation in the dogs eyes enables our four legged friend’s eyes to be more sensitive in identifying the different shades of violets and blues.

Find out more about how dogs see color and dog first aid at Sarah’s Dogs.

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