Running Off the Track: Fill my eyes... with that doggie vision

It's Post Time

This was the second post I did on my Papa's blog. It was about how dogs can see in color, not in black and white as some people think.

From a Dog's Eye View

I just wanted to let everyone know that I can see in color. I know it was previously believed that dogs only saw in black and white, but research done in the 1990s found rods and cones in the retina of dogs. They had to cut up doggie eyes to find out, but it was for medical research and those dogs donated their bodies to science after all. So I guess I am OK with it.

We don't see as much color as our humans do. Daddy and Papa can see many more colors and much more vibrancy in those colors. Human eyes have three color receptor cells, called cone cells. They come in three varieties, red/yellow, green, and blue/violet. Dogs have only two types of cones, blue and yellow. My color vision is comparable to a red/green color blind human. I can't tell the difference between yellows, reds and greens, but do see blues and violets well enough. Plus, I can distinguish many more shades of gray than humans and I can also see at much lower light levels. That means I can see much better than my parents at night. I also have a broader field of view, 90 degrees more than the 180 degree field that my parents have. So in many ways, my vision is better than that of my human parents.

So anyway, if you thought I might have had a hard time seeing in color, don't worry about it. It might be hard for me to see some colors, but I can distinguish between some, so my world isn't all grays!
But around the holidays, it isn't as festive for me, with all the red and green decorations, as it is for some people. But that's OK by me, because I have a very happy home and I can sleep on the couch whenever I want to.

Well, that's all I wanted to say to everyone. Oh yeah, Papa told me to wish everyone a Happy Labor Day, while I was here. So Happy Labor Day, everyone.
What's Labor Day anyway? Is that some kind of festival for Labrador retrievers? What's so special about them?

My vision spectrum as compared to the human spectrum

As you can see, I can distinguish more variations in the blue/violet end of the spectrum than I can in the red/green end. Everything over there looks kind of yellow to me. It's because my retinas only have yellow and blue cone cells to detect colors.

Here are some photographs comparing my vision to yours. What I see is on the right. They both look the same to me, but you should see a difference.