How do dogs see?
The vision of our furry friends has always raised many questions: how do they see colors? Can they see in the dark? How do dogs see humans? If you are curious to know how dogs see, in today’s article we explain all the characteristics of canine vision.
How dogs see: characteristics of canine vision
Dogs are born blind and during the first months of life they gradually develop their sense of sight. From six weeks onwards, puppies progressively increase their visual perception until, at three months, they reach their definitive capacity. Therefore, if you want to know how dogs see, the first thing you should keep in mind is that their vision is not fully developed until they are three months old. From then on, our four-legged companions’ sight has the following characteristics:
Visual acuity and focus distance
Dogs’ visual acuity is not as good as that of humans. Specifically, the vision of our furry friends reaches four times less distance than ours. In other words: to distinguish a distant object, a dog needs to be at least 25 meters away, while a person only needs to be 100 meters away to see it with the same clarity. Dogs also have greater difficulty than humans in seeing nearby objects clearly, since their focus distance is not as effective as ours. While a person needs to be 6 centimeters away to differentiate a nearby object, a dog requires at least 30 centimeters.
Color perception
Until not many years ago, we thought that dogs saw in black and white and could only distinguish objects thanks to their brightness levels. Today, it has been scientifically proven that canine vision works differently and we know exactly how their color perception mechanism functions. Human vision works through three types of cones, which allow us to distinguish red from green and blue from yellow. However, dogs only have two types of cones, meaning they can distinguish blue and yellow but see green and red less precisely. That’s why they perceive green as a scale from yellow to gray and red as somewhere between brown and yellow.
Motion detection and field of vision
One visual characteristic in which our four-legged companions are better than humans is detecting motion patterns. When an object is moving, dogs’ visual ability triples. This is because their eyes have more rods than human eyes. In addition, the frequency with which they capture and process images is higher than ours. Field of vision is another of the most outstanding traits of canine vision. While humans have a visual field of 180º, our furry friends have a field of vision of 250º.
How do dogs see at night?
Taking into account all the characteristics of canine vision, we can understand why dogs see better than people in low light conditions. Although our loyal companions have fewer cones than us, they have many more rods, which are the receptors responsible for visual sensitivity when light is low. In addition, their pupils are larger and they have a layer called tapetum lucidum, which causes dogs’ eyes to shine when we take pictures of them in dark places.
This membrane acts as a reflective mirror of light, increasing the effectiveness of the receptors in dim light. Now you know how dogs see and how canine vision differs from human vision. To summarize, we can say that although dogs can distinguish different colors, they do not perceive the same range of colors as humans. Their visual acuity is not as good as ours either, but, on the other hand, they are better at detecting movement and see much better in the dark.
