Why do people think dogs are color blind (they aren't!)?

Question

Dogs are red-green blind, but they can see other colors!
Where did the black and white nonsense come from?

There are two types of cells in the retina that receive light: rods and cones. Rods are for sensing motion and work best in low light levels. All mammals, including people, have more rods than cones. Cone cells are adapted for seeing in brighter light and can detect different colors of light. Humans have three types of cones. Dogs have two types of cones. Evidence suggests that the dog has vision similar to a human who is red-green color blind. Cats have three types of cones, like people, but do not have exactly the same color vision as we do. Cats live in a world of fuzzy pastels.

Answer 1

To be honest, I've been wondering the same thing lately. I can't believe how many people think that dogs only see black and white. It must another one of those Old Wives' Tales.

I'm adding a link for those who think it's only black and white.

Answer 2

Hi Dear,

Words spread like a fire in a forest! Whenever the story of Dogs' red-green color blindness had been discovered, probably some have mistaken that they can't recognise any color. And I think, it's this misconcept that might have grown and still a few ppl think so. But, Not just dogs, a whole lot of other species have varying sights and color-recognition abilities. Anyways, Hope the above one answers your question. Have a Wonderful day and may you be blessed!

Answer 3

People think dogs are color blind because they've either been told so by someone on whom they rely for information (a vet, friend, or relative), or because they have heard or read it somewhere else.

Unfortunately, many people don't keep up with scientific research and development. Many articles have been published on subjects that people have "opinions" on, such as dogs being colorblind or how cats purr.

It's been scientifically proven how cats purr, but because for so many years people have said that "nobody knows yet what makes them purr", some people still believe science does not know why cats purr. It's the same with dogs' vision - because people, including "experts" have said for so many years that dogs can only see black and white, or shades of gray, people have simply not done any further research to find out if new studies have been done in the past 20-some years to disprove this old myth.

In fact, there have been - and many of them, at that. And it has been proven that dogs are, in fact, NOT colorblind, but that they are red-green blind, like the original poster said.

Here are some sources for dog's vision information:
http://www.puplife.com/dogcaretips/howdogsseecolors.html
http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/LA/DrP4.htm
http://psychlops.psy.uconn.edu/eric/class/dogvision.html

Answer 4

People assume that color blind means total color blindness (a very rare condition in people). The majority of color blind people (and all dogs) are just red/green color blind.

Answer 5

Many people believe dogs can only see in black and white. But further research recently has shown that dogs can actually see colours, especially blue and purples. Its mainly just reds and greens they have trouble with, like humans can do sometimes. :) I read this in a book somewhere that told me all these hilarious myths about animals and what the truth really was.

Answer 6

Dogs can see black and white, plus some colour – but not the same colour vision that people have.

Dogs can distinguish yellow and blue, but as with colour-blind people, dogs cannot distinguish between green and red. Jo went on to say that dogs make up for this by having excellent night vision, and are good at detecting movement – but their detail vision is not as good as humans.

Answer 7

Most meteors are tiny specks of dust and rapidly burn up in the atmosphere. Some are larger and produce spectacular fireballs that are very bright, and may explode (in some cases with sound heard on the ground). Meteors are common; you can usually observe a few per hour on any clear night, but fireballs are rare. The following three images show some recently observed fireballs.
wait...that wasnt the question? o wait.it was dumber than 'what is a meteor?'

Answer 8

i've wondered that too. It's not like you can ask the dog: does this shirt go with these pants? Is it too red? Are my eyes green?

Answer 9

I don't know. That's something new to me.

Answer 10

It's like an urban legend or something. Someone hears it and passes it on.