is it right that dogs can only see in black and white? and if so how do we know?

Answer 1

No,, that is the wrong interpretation of "color blind"

Just like a color blind person, a dog sees in two colors instead of three.

The major difference between a dogs vision and our is that a dogs eyes have fewer cones (gather color) and more rods (gather light) So a dog sees about like a color blind person, and at night sees about like a person using night vision goggles.

Believe me,, if a retriever can see a bird shot at over 400 yards away well enough to mark it's exact location, they see a lot better than we do.
Sight hounds see motion at over a mile away.

Answer 2

No, that's not true.

Seeing the world through your dog's eyes is not as simple as renting an old black-and-white movie. The canine eye contains a variety of photoreceptors, or light detectors, that allow the animal to see. Some are shaped like rods, some like cones. Cone-shaped photoreceptors are the basis for color vision. Because dogs' eyes have significantly more rods than cones, researchers once believed dogs saw only in black and white. Research conducted in the 1980s at the University of California at Santa Barbara indicated otherwise: The studies revealed dogs could distinguish between a red ball and a blue ball, white light and colored lights, and closely related hues of violet and blue. They cannot make a distinction between colors from greenish yellow through orange and red. As more research is done, our limited understanding of canine vision is sure to shift again.

Veterinary ophthalmologists have determined that dogs are like people with red/green color blindness: They only have receptors for bluish and greenish shades, not for reddish ones. So, when a person with normal vision sees an orange ball on a grassy lawn, a dog sees only a greenish ball in greenish grass.

Answer 3

Thinking back many years to biology lessons at school - it's all to do with rods and cones (don't remember what they are exactly). They are parts of the eye that see in colour or black and white. Apparently dogs recognise people by the way they move and walk and not by how they look. Well, so I believe anyway. But I may be wrong.

Answer 4

The reason for this has to do with the makeup of the thin layer that lines the back of the eyeball, the retina, which reacts with light and allows dogs to see. Vision involves cells called rods and cones. The rods send black and white images to the brain, while the cones allow us to see color. Most of the cells within a dog’s retina are rods, so that it is believed that what dogs see is mostly in black and white.

The higher population of rods in a dog’s retina also allows them to see better in the dark than a human, since it takes less light to excite the rods than it does to excite a cone. In addition, most dogs have a shiny layer along the back of the eye that reflects light, increasing the efficiency of vision in low light conditions. It is this shiny layer that makes a dog’s eyes “glow” in the dark when you shine a flashlight into their eyes.

Answer 5

Its always been a well known fact that dogs see in black and white but I did see a programme once that prove that not true.So what Id like to know is who is the dog that says that ,why do they only see in black and white,Im not convinced its true but im not an expert.My dog once at a party (yes he was invited )would not leave a black woman alone for a minute and my husband thought he might have thought she was a big choccky bar .ooooops sorry ,not at all racist just was a funny comment .She laughed at it aswell .

Answer 6

Actually dogs have bichromatic vision meaning they see in Yellow and Blue (although obviously black and white too). We know this from examining the rods and cones within a dogs eye using microscopes to identify the number of cones (for colour vision) present. Hope this helps.

Answer 7

The reason is so they can see in the dark. They see just as well in the night as they do in the day because they only see black and white.

Answer 8

I've read it's true that dogs only see in black and white, but I've also read that dogs can't see what is on tv, which my dogs completely disprove as they bark at any animal which appears on tv ... so who know.

Answer 9

good question. i heard that dogs see only black & white. and what if a person is colored-blind, how do that person know that? =)

Answer 10

Yes that's true. We understand the construction of the eye, and know that certain types of receptors must be present to see color. Those are not present in a dog. However, their sense of smell is 100,000 times better than ours.