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Do Dogs See Colors..?

August 27th, 2008

See different colors?

It has been a rampant and untested folklore that dogs are colorblind, but the University of California, Santa Barbara did a series of definitive tests in the 1980s that provided some more clarity on the matter.

“These experiments showed that dogs do see color, but in a more limited range than that seen by normal humans, who see the rainbow of colors described by “VIBGYOR”: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red (plus hundreds of variations on these shades). Instead, dogs see “VIBYYYR” (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, and Red). The colors Green, Yellow, and Orange all look alike to dogs; but look different from Red and different from the various Blues and Purples. Dogs are very good at telling different shades of VIB apart. Finally, Blue-Green looks White to dogs.

The simple explanation for these differences in color vision is this. The retinas of normal humans have three (3) types of color receptors, called “cones”. Each cone type is particularly sensitive to light of a narrow limit within the entire VIBGYOR range. That means that three different “cone lines” of communication run back to the visual part of the brain, which then compares the weight of the signals coming in from each of cone “line”. Different weights produce a perception of different colors. In dogs (and in “green-blind” humans), there are only two (2) types of cones, so there is less basis for comparison by the brain, and thus the perceived color range is more limited. In sum, dog color vision is “color-limited”, not “color-blind”.”

The Whole Spectrum

Posted in K9 Science | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Do Dogs See Colors..?”

1. Lindsay says:

   August 30, 2008 at 8:22 pm

   I was actually just talking about this with someone yesterday. I had heard that dogs see some color, and he said that dogs don’t see color because they don’t have cones. Well, look who was right! Thanks for clarifying.