A Dog's World
Our loyal friends, Canis lupis familiaris otherwise known as the domestic dog see the world in a different way to us humans. It’s long been known that dogs have limited vision with respect to colour. They don’t see the world in monochrome, but the design of their eyes only consists of a couple of cells responsible for colour sensing. While that’s only one less than us, it makes a world of difference due to the range of sensing with respect to wavelength. Experiments carried out in 1989 by Jay Neitz at the University of Washington determined that dogs possessed dichromatic vision. This means that while they don’t see the world in just a single colour, they see between two distinct hues!
Colourful Canine Vision
Neitz was able to deduce two specific peaks in the visible colour spectrum that were sensed within the eyes of dogs within a sample size. It was found that dogs could sense between the peak wavelengths of 429 and 555 nm. 420-440nm is classified as a short wave-length light that corresponds to the colour blue. 555nm sits between both green and yellow, it is between these colours that dogs can see the world. Dogs can still see the rainbow in the distance, just in a very different way to us, with shades of blues, yellows and greys.
Ambient Sight
As humans, we struggle to see much in the dark. Our feline friends are known to be nocturnal hunters and have built in night vision for reconnaissance. Dogs are not equipped with night vision, please leave the lights on where possible. Pups can, however, see better than us in low light environments. Ambient lighting conditions are hard for us to see in but there isn’t decisive research that has uncovered as to why dogs Can see better in low light environments. Structure of a dog’s eye, particularly a biologically reflective layer of tissue that sits behind the retina may be responsible for the improvement of vision in low light. Humans do not possess this layer, but it's worth noting that it is for this very reason that dogs take a while to adapt in new lighting conditions. If your dog is showing signs of discomfort in normal lighting conditions, there might be an underlying problem that is causing hypersensitivity. We will be covering this topic in our forthcoming entries.
Research around domesticated dogs can be regarded to be in stages of infancy as it’s only been a few decades from the initial exploration into how our charming pooches perceive the world. It’s worth knowing as much as possible about our loyal companions so we can give our fur friends the care and attention they deserve. Woof!
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29143248
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/visual-neuroscience/article/color-vision-in-the-dog/
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