Do dogs see in color or are...

Question
Do dogs see in color or are they colorblind and just see in black and
white?


Answer
Hi Mitch,

Dogs can see in much dimmer light than humans. At twilight when you are having trouble seeing shades of color, they see as well as what you were seeing at noontime.

Dogs can detect motion better than humans can

Dogs do not have the ability to focus as well on the shape of objects (their visual acuity is lower). An object a human can see clearly may appear to be blurred to a dog looking at it from the same distance. A rough estimate is that dogs have about 20/75 vision. This means that they can see at 20 feet what a normal human could see clearly at 75 feet.

Dogs are said to have "dichromatic vision" -- they can see only part of the range of colors in the visual spectrum of light wavelengths. Humans have "trichomatic vision", meaning that they can see the whole spectrum. Dogs probably lack the ability to see the range of colors from green to red. This means that they see in shades of yellow and blue primarily... if the current theory is correct. It was once believed that dog's were totally color blind. Who knows what the theory of what colors dogs see will be years from now!

Since it is impossible to ask them, it is not possible to say that they see these colors in the same hues that a human would. Whether or not the ability to see some color is important to dogs or not is hard to say.

I hope I've been a help.

-Patti