Jay Neitz, PhD, Bishop Professor of Ophthalmology, was featured in Scientific American in an Oct. 4 story on what colors dogs see. Earlier in his career, Dr. Neitz and his colleagues discovered that canines could see blues and yellows but not reds and greens. Some humans, about 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women, are similarly red-green color-blind.
It turns out that dogs possess two types of color-sensing receptors, called cones, in their retinas. This makes them similar to most mammals—including cats, cattle and pigs—and unlike humans, who have three cones.
“Our work has had a big influence, and lots of people now understand what color vision in dogs really is,” says Neitz.
Also important for dogs’ perception is their sense of smell, which is 10,000 to 100,000 times more powerful than that of an average human.
Read the article in Scientific American here.