LPF Peeps! Can dogs see in color?

There are articles all over ranging in "OPINION" from scientists and doctors saying dogs can see or have very limited eyesight when it comes to color.

I have two male dobermans (Klaus and Piton), one of which is a flashlight/laser freak! Klaus (on right in picture) makes cats look mild mannered when it come to chasing light. You can not pick up a flashlight or laser pointer without him immediately showing up, panting with pupils dilated, with his head cocked looking for a beam or dot. He has been this way in all of his nine years. Piton couldn't care less and I can never even get him to acknowledge a light source.



With this said, Klaus chases flashlight dots, 405nm, 445nm, 532nm, 573.5nm and 650nm laser dots all with equal, neurotic pleasure. I am sure he would chase orange or teal as well.

Since lasers are pure light sources, I even tried this in the blazing, high-noon sunlight and he is all over even the faintest dot of any wavelength! He will dig a three foot hole in seconds trying to get a static dot.

Has anyone out there experienced either a "Klaus", "Piton" or anything in between with their doggies? What do you think about this?

FYI - A jumping cat is one thing, but a sprinting doberman, kicking up divots, at full tilt in a large yard is impressive... especially when he can get 9' in the air (snout) trying to get the dot in a tree!

I think dogs can see the richest of colors, faint or bright, so they must be able to see in color better than we think.

Regards,
Patrick

Dogs see mainly in shades of grey but are more prone to seeing the wavelengths of 429 and 555.

For instance, what we see as red, a dog probably sees as green, and what a human see as yellow, a dog sees as a neutral colour -grey.

Cyparagon - I did... first F'n sentence in my post... and answers vary drastically... That's why I mentioned it in my post. Not just wiki either... that article mentioned very little about the topic.

Maybe a link to an article/study using pure light or color sources/lasers with dogs would have been cool... could find one though.

I am looking for personal, disputing evidence/experiences (hence the post)... not someone using google. Not being negative, but if it's not a topic you don't want to discuss, then don't.

Why does my dog flip over pure red and pure green (even faint dots on daylight) if they are red/green color blind?

I wonder about IR... Klaus is such a freak... I wouldn't be surprised if he reacted to something just in the IR or UV spectrum. But, I don't have anything to test that.

I don't think we'll hear from an actual dog anytime soon, but it's interesting to discuss I think.

Personally I think that dogs are colorblind, but that doesn't mean that they don't react to new stimuli due to different colors. A different color simply means a different shade of grey to them, which if it appears out of nowhere, the dog's level of curiosity will drive it to explore what that new "phenomenon" is.

It also depends on the personality of the dog in general. I had two dobermans also, one was hyperactive and playful (probably not as much as yours) and the other was very mellow in behavior (much like yours). All I say is that I think that this just explains how a dog reacts to a new stimuli and that dogs have different personalities (ie. Some dogs get easily concerned by some situations while others think negligibly of the same situation).

Interesting.

My one dog that chases them is very hyperactive and curious, while the other is very mellow and doesn't even acknowledge them. So, it's hard for me to tell if the eyesight/perception is similar.

It's funny how their personalities are very different, but both have the same distinctive bread personalities.

I am not fully convinced they can't see color at all though.

Yeah, I'm probably not entirely sure about them being completely colorblind or not, it's all a speculation. But then again, how can we know for certain?

This is totally going on biological aspects, but the human eye has these little mechanisms called cones and rods. Cones allow us to visualize our world in color, while rods allow us to see different shades of black and white. Although, I'm not certain if the anatomy of a dog's eye is exactly analogous to ours in that sense. But if they are, I'd figure that's how we can find out...maybe if the dog's eyes only or mostly contained rods...then that would explain why they might only see very limited color, or no color at all!

However, I don't exactly know how the cone and rod concept works out with PEOPLE who are partially colorblind (You know...like those people that can't see blue/violet, or green/yellow). Maybe different cones work for different colors...or heck, maybe all cones work the same but are deficient in viewing reflected wavelengths that fluoresce the colors that they can't see?

You know, this is actually inspiring me to do some research when I have some free time! Hopefully I can address my own questions soon...

I will do some more digging too and post back if I find anything concrete.

Biology/anatomy are weak spots for me. Always room for more knowledge though.

I was kind of interested if anyone had a dog that reacts to one wavelength and not another. Since I have a complete freak that tries to pounce on everything and another that does nothing, its hard to tell.


Regards,

Patrick

Plyman44 said:

I will do some more digging too and post back if I find anything concrete.

Biology/anatomy are weak spots for me. Always room for more knowledge though.

I was kind of interested if anyone had a dog that reacts to one wavelength and not another. Since I have a complete freak that tries to pounce on everything and another that does nothing, its hard to tell.


Regards,

Patrick

Click to expand...

Sounds like you really like dogs.

Misanthrop said:

Sounds like you really like dogs.

Click to expand...

Indeed, he does

I like it when my dogs can do this...:lasergun:

Now I'm confused. Do I have this straight? Because this is what it looks like to me: You ask our opinion, I say it's not a matter of opinion, it's a known fact. Here - here's the fact. You reply with "But I want to discuss opinions anyway"

Here's one of the sources cited.
Weird how all the people that hate Wikipedia have no sources of their own.

We have a pomeranian that can certainly differentiate colors. When my wife pulls a pink towel out that she uses for when she baths her she splits.

I don't think anyone can really say for sure, i mean yes tests have been done on dogs eyes but who knows what their brains make of it.

EDIT: on reading Cyparagon's link <- Good read.

Still, even with all the tests i really don't think anyone can say for sure, the structure or the eye could be totally different but at the end of it all... its all about what the dog perceives and that's even hard to study in humans AND we have the advantage of communication.

I just watched a documentary shown on UK TV last week called "Do you see what i see" very interesting stuff! it was all about colour...
if you can find a torrent i recommend watching it

Ill get a link up if i can find it.

Horizon: Do You See What I See?
Roses are red, violets are blue but according to the latest understanding these colours are really an illusion. One that you create yourself. Horizon reveals a surprising truth about how we all see the world. You may think a rose is red, the sky is blue and the grass is green, but it now seems that the colours you see may not always be the same as the colours I see. Your age, sex and even mood can affect how you experience colours. Scientists have unlocked the hidden power that colours can have over your life - how red can make you a winner, how blue makes time speed up, and more.

Here it is,

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6592755/BBC_Horizon_2011_Do_You_See_What_I_See_PDTV_XviD_AC3_

Go!

I should point out that she knows the difference between pink and light purple.

Tonga said:

I should point out that she knows the difference between pink and light purple.

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Yeah, this doesn't mean she see's them as pink or purple... pink isn't even a colour anyway, pink actually only exists in your mind... As you say though she may know a difference but what we see as pink and purple she could see as two different shades of the same colour, just as we see light blue and dark blue if you get me?, BUT then again.. she could see them as pink and purple just as we do, as humans we can only study the biology of a dogs eye and compare it with our own, the mind is an infinite of complexity... i really don't see how this question can be answered with 100% certainty we can only take our best guess based on what we know.

I hear you. We thought the colors were close enough that we were suprised the first time we realized that she could tell.