We have all sometimes thought that dogs see in black and white. However, that is not the case. And not only that, but they look at the world differently – the human would say, somewhat cloudy and distorted. However, the vision of the leaves us to reflect on two important questions: on the one hand, that, indeed, there are different worlds for each pair of eyes (and for each mind), and on the other, the possibility that the world is not as humans have codified it, until today – and in this sense, whose eyes would have the truth?
It has already been proven by science that dogs can perceive beyond black and white. Our companions actually have dichromatic vision. That is, they are capable of perceiving two primary colors, and not three, like us.
They are missing one of the conical cell layers that we have in our eyes—the color receptors—which is why they perceive a different color spectrum. Dogs do not see well the tones between red and green, which they see gray, something similar to what color blind people suffer, without coming from a genetic disease. Therefore, if you throw a red ball at your dog and it falls into a bush of green plants, it is possible that he will become disoriented and can only find it by smell.
Dogs also have lower visual acuity than us (between 4 and 8 times less), and it is even believed to be worse than that of wolves. Of course, they make up for this with their unbeatable night vision and a motion detector capable of identifying patterns, as a 2013 study confirmed.
So our dogs’ vision has its pros and cons. In fact, they are able to recognize another dog on television, according to the Animal Cognition study, something that suggests that their visual capacity is related to a particular cognition and neuronal functioning that makes them especially intelligent animals.
But how do dogs see the world?
Their vision is, hypothetically, like that of a colorblind person with cataracts. To exemplify this, the WolframAlpha site created an interesting platform that allows us to know how our dog sees the world, modifying various photos and comparing them with our own ability to give us a clearer idea.
We cannot know what it is like to be in their fur, but this simulator shares our companions’ perception of reality. Some examples:
You may be interested in: Genius dogs exist, and they share this characteristic