Can Dogs See Color?
Apr 1, 2024
You get your pup a new ball and they are completely not interested. Why could this be? Toto loves balls! You may have heard the old tale that dogs can’t see color or that they only see in shades of gray, and this couldn’t be further from true. Let’s dive into what your pup can and can’t see!
The simplest answer is that dogs see a wide spectrum of colors, but they just are not the same shades as humans see. Dogs see the world in more muted colors, so not as vibrant as we see. Every living being has multiple different light catching cells in their eyes that are called cones. As humans we have a plethora of cones in our eyes, while our furry friends have much less, resulting in them seeing less vivid and strong colors. These cones have a way of catching different wavelengths of light and the brain processes each wavelength into colors we know!
A dog’s vision is most comparable to humans that have a color blindness to reds and greens. They have a more difficult time seeing shades of green and red, but they still can see them! Most of the cones in your pups have evolved over time to catch more blue hues! When dogs first started being bred, they were bred for specific jobs, a lot of which involved hunting and catching prey, which they didn’t need a wide range of color detection for. They do have a much wider range of peripheral vision than humans and are much more adept to seeing motion at a distance, which makes sense being they were made for it!
With a nose that is at least 100,000 times more powerful than a human, your pup’s other senses, especially smell, far outweighs the benefit of advanced color perception. Dogs have evolved to heavily rely on their other senses and they can really smell most of what they need!
