It is a common misconception that dogs only see black and white or shades of grey or that they are colour blind. However, dogs actually do see colour, but limited colours and not in the same way as humans because they have a different colour vision spectrum.
Humans have three different colour sensitive cone cells in their retina (green, red and blue) while dogs have only two colour sensitive cone cells (yellow and blue). Therefore they see various combinations of these two colours - yellow and blue. They can see greyish brown, dark yellow, light yellow, greyish yellow, light blue and dark blue.
Although dogs struggle to see certain colours, they can still distinguish between the colours based on their level of, or differences in brightness. They can also see better than humans can in dimmer or darker light and can detect motion more easily than humans.
When it comes to dog toys the most popular colour is often red or orange, but red actually appears as dark brown-grey or even black. If you are confused as to why your dog sometimes walks right past the ball he or she is searching for that you just threw for them, this could be why. They may actually be struggling to see it or distinguish it from the green grass around it.
The Foaber Foam Rubber range of toys were developed with this in mind. A fun range of toys that appeal to a dogs' colour vision spectrum, using the yellow and blue combination making it easy for dogs to see and find their toys.
Other than being highly visible to dogs these toys have the strength and flexibility of rubber but with the light weight of foam.
You can find these toys at any Absolute Pets (in store or online) if you'd like to try them out with your dog or surprise them with a fun new toy for summer.
We hope you found this article interesting.
Happy and healthy
The Absolute Pets team