The not so colorful world of a dog
Sunday, October 31st, 2010The world as seen in the eyes of a dog will be in white and in different shades of grey. This is due to the fact that dogs are believed to have no ability to see colors. Dogs are highly valued for their ultrasensitive senses. A dog’s sensitive scenting and hearing abilities is what makes them outstanding guard dogs. Excellent vision is what makes sighthounds outstanding hunters. It is generally believed that human’s best friend has the knack of seeing better in the dark . With dog that taking on the guarding duty, the people in the house can have a good nights rest.
With these ultrasensitive senses, it is surprising to note that dogs are believed incapable of seeing colors. Dogs do have the ability to see colors but not in the same way humans can. A study on canine vision conducted in the University of California has proven the fact that dogs can see colors but their vision as compared to human’s vision is less detailed. Yes, Fido cannot appreciate the new bright red ball as to the eyes of the dog the new toy would appear to be a hard to see black or dark brownish gray ball.
Humans and dogs are very similar in genetics. Similar to humans, a dogs eye has special cells called cone photoreceptors that controls color perception by catching the light. However, while humans have three cone photoreceptors, dogs only have two. The three cones in our eyes delivers 100% full range vision while dogs have approximately 20% range of color vision as they lack on cone. As expected, this will make the dog’s vision far inferior than human vision.
The ROYGBIV colors of the rainbow will be seen by the dog as blue, light blue, grey, light yellow, brownish yellow and dark grey. The world therefore in the eyes of the dog is colored in yellow, grey and blue. 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.
The yellow pigmentation in the human eyes that blocks short wavelengths and reduces the eyes’ sensitivity to blue and violet eyes is the reason why humans do not have the ability to distinguish the slight changes in the shades of violets and blues. Dogs do not have this yellow pigmentation thus they can distinguish the blue and violet shades.