Dogs can’t see the difference between red and green colors

The colors red and green look exactly the same to dogs, according to new research. Experts have discovered that dogs suffer from a condition that does not allow them to detect a difference between the two colors.

Previous studies have found that dogs are prone to poor vision, yet the cause of this was unknown. Researchers have now concluded that dogs suffer from deuteranopioa, which prevents them from distinguishing between red and green.

Dogs were most active at dusk and dawn back before they were domesticated, and at those hours of the day it is not important to distinguish between colors. Some experts believe that dogs’ eyes have simply not evolved to see colors.

Researchers from the University of Bari in Italy developed a color dot test similar to a test used to detect color vision deficiency in humans. For the human version of the test, numbers are used to mark the various dots. For the dog variation of the test, the research team used images of cats hidden in the dots.

After testing 16 dogs of different breeds, the experts determined that the dogs could not see the images of the cats, indicating they had red-green color blindness.

Lead author Marcello Siniscalchi told The Telegraph, “We show that dogs exhibit a behavioral response similar to that of red–green blind human subjects suggesting that dogs struggle to distinguish between red and green colors. It would be reasonable to hypothesise that dogs also have difficulty in discriminating between brown and orange but we have not directly tested these color shades.”

The researchers believe that the findings of this study could help both dog owners and dog trainers improve their dog’s attentive skills. The study is published in the Royal Society Open Science.

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer