Eye Care Fun Facts

Dogs and cats see only in black and white.

Answer: False

It’s true that dogs and cats don’t see color as well as people do, but their vision isn’t as colorless as a black-and-white movie. Certain pops of color regularly brighten their worlds.

Dogs see blues and yellows best. Their color vision is most like that of a person with red-green colorblindness, meaning that a red toy blends perfectly into green grass (don’t worry, though, they can find that toy by smell alone!).

Cats, on the other hand, technically have the ability to see the full rainbow, but it is so weak (literally 10 times weaker than human color vision) that only intense colors register. Based on observations, some scientists believe cats only detect blues, yellows and grays.  

What our pets lack in color vision, they make up in spades with night vision, an impressive sense of smell and acute hearing, making their perception of the world just as rich as ours—just in a completely different way.

 

Bust some more myths and discover more fun facts at AskVCA.com, where our veterinary experts answer commonly asked pet questions. >>

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