Dog owners often wonder how their pets see the world. Human and canine eyes are made differently, and what we see is very different from what they see.
British vet Ryann Rochford decided to show how pets see the world. To do so, she created a series of photographs of popular tourist spots in the UK. Some show how humans perceive them and others show how dogs do.
“Dogs have dichromatic vision, which means they only see blue and yellow. Humans, on the other hand, see the world in blue, yellow and red. Dogs, on the other hand, see dark brown instead of red. They see green as beige and purple as blue,” says Rochford.
This is how a person and a dog see Brighton Pier in Brighton, England
Dogs have their eyes at an angle of 20 degrees. This increases their peripheral vision, but also means that their binocular vision is less well developed.
This is how a person and a dog see the town of the Cotswolds
“It’s also important to know that dogs have blurred vision from birth, meaning they see the world around them 8 times worse than we do. They also react worse to light, meaning they detect changes in brightness 2 times worse than we do,” says Rochford.
The human eye has photoreceptors that respond to light, and there are photoreceptors that are responsible for colour differences, called cones. Dogs have two cones and humans have three. So colour perception is different in dogs.
This is how a human and a dog see the village of Portmeirion in Wales
According to the veterinarian, dogs have better peripheral vision due to the special position of their eyes, meaning they can see better than humans what is going on out of focus. But among the disadvantages of dogs’ vision, Rochmond said, is that pets do not see objects in three dimensions, which lowers the perception of depth and volume of a visible object, as well as the distance to it.
This is how Glenfinnan, a concrete arch railway viaduct in Scotland, is seen by a human and a dog
This is how a human and a dog see the Peak District National Park
But dogs are not particularly affected by the fact that they have poorer eyesight than humans. They rely more on their sense of smell in their daily lives. According to scientists, dogs have it 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than humans. So when a dog loses its sight as it ages, it can still live normally.
