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Excerpted
from "What Do Dogs Know?":
 When
it comes to vision, humans are considerably better off
than their canine companions. Dogs can never know much
about colors, since their color vision is limited; indeed,
for many years scientists thought that dogs could only
see the world in shades of gray.
Recent research has proven that
dogs do have some color vision. This was done by training
dogs to discriminate between various colored lights. These
studies determined that our pet canines can't tell the
difference between reds and greens at ail, and they probably
see the world in shades of blue and yellow.
The effort it took to train dogs
in these experimental tests probably means that dogs don't
attach the significance to colors that humans do. For
instance, take an old brown sofa that a dog likes to curl
up in and reupholster it in a delicate, light blue fabric.
Suddenly the dog's family won't let him come near it anymore.
Dogs are unclear about the concept here.They may wonder
"is light blue dangerous or unhealthy for dogs?"
Copyright
© 1999 Stanley Coren.
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