What Colors Can Dogs See?

Dogs have eyes that are primed to see motion better than color, but they're not colorblind. Learn more about dogs' vision in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/are-dogs-colorblind.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey,
brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bond. Here in school, you might
have learned the acronym roy G biv to remember the
colors of the rainbow. While the average human can see
a spectrum of color from red to violet, a rainbow
appears slightly different to dogs. Instead of gradually transitioning from

(00:25):
red to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, a
dog's visible spectrum starts with a deep brown, transitioning into
a lighter brown, yellow, gray, light blue, and then dark blue.
But why is that? Humans are what's called trichromats. We
have three different types of cells called cones and our eyes,

(00:46):
and each type of cone is designed to distinguish a
specific wavelength of light. Combined, these three types of cones
allow you to distinguish up staggering million colors or more.
On the other hand, dogs and most other mammal are
die chromats, which means they only have two types of cones.
This doesn't mean that they see the world in black

(01:06):
and white, only that they can distinguish fewer colors than
the average human. Don't feel too sorry for your canine companion, though,
Even with just two types of cones. They can see
somewhere around ten thousand different shades, and they can see
much better in dimmer light than you can. Dogs have
many more rods in their retinas than humans do. Rods

(01:29):
are another type of cell in the eyes, their light
receptors that are sensitive to changes in light and darkness
and to movement, but they don't perceive color. It's likely
that dogs evolved to have more rods than cones in
their eyes, since being able to detect a moving animal
in the dark was more useful when hunting for food.
When it comes to colors, doggy vision is very similar

(01:51):
to that of humans who have red green color blindness.
Alike humans with this condition, dogs can easily interpret colors
with shorter wavelengths blue, but may have trouble with colors
with longer wavelengths like red. They see in a rich
spectrum of color, but may mix up shades of red
and green, or those with red or green components like

(02:12):
purple or teal. Since dogs are unable to distinguish the
color red, they simply interpret it as a dark brown.
All yellow, green, or orange objects appear in various shades
of yellow or yellow, brown, purple, which consists of red
and blue, looks like pure blue to dogs because they
can't interpret the red component. The blue green hue of

(02:32):
oceans and other bodies of water likely appears to your
dog in various shades of gray, So keep your canines
color capabilities in mind the next time you're shopping for
the perfect toy for your best friend. Skip the bright reds,
which appear as muddy brown to your pooch, and stick
to colors like blue or yellow that your dog can
truly appreciate. Today's episode based on the article what colors

(03:01):
can Dog see on how stuff works dot com written
by Vambi Turner and brain Stuff is production of I
Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com,
and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from
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