How Fido Sees the World in Color

Although our dogs see color, they do not see it the way humans do. For a long time, scientists thought dogs could only see life in black and white. However, it has recently become known that our furry friends can see color. These friendly pets have differences in their visual activity and even some advantages to the human eye.

What Makes Up Dog Eyes

A dog’s eye anatomy is slightly different from the human eye, but this small change makes a huge difference. The difference in the way we see is in the cones and rods in our eyes. 

Dogs have one significant advantage over us humans: rod cells. These cells work well in low-lit areas and act as night vision for our four-legged friends. Humans only have one rod, whereas dogs have two. These animals’ pupils can also dilate much more expansive than a human’s. They have reflective lenses behind their retinas, allowing their eyes to reflect all light in the darkness, which gives them glowing eyes at night.

Dogs originally hunted at night, meaning they needed night vision to hunt and survive at one point. The color of food was not as important to these animals as they instead focused on the movement of animals.

Humans needed to observe color as we evolved, needing to hunt and distinguish color as not to poison ourselves.

Humans have three cones in their eyes, being trichromatic and giving us the ability to see red, blue, and green, our primary colors. We can see all shades and variants of these colors, allowing us to receive a full-color spectrum.

On the other hand, dogs only have two cones, which means they only have two primary colors. Only being able to see blue and yellow, dogs are dichromatic, which is like being color blind. 

Are Dogs Colorblind

Dogs are colorblind only in the red-green colorblindness spectrum. Red would appear brown, gray, or black; yellow, orange, and green would all seem yellow; blue and purple come as a vibrant blue to dogs. They are unable to see these colors as well as we can.

Doggy Eyesight

Our furry companions are nearsighted, meaning they can’t see nearly as far as a human may. They have a peripheral vision that beats ours, being able to view 250 degrees where humans can only see 60 degrees.

Although our dogs have different eyesight than humans may, that does not mean they are at a disadvantage. Dog’s vision evolved to best fit their lifestyle needs and make their lives less ruff.