Cross Breeds - If dogs cant see colours, then why is my Boxer obsessed with orange?

If dogs cant see colours, then why is my Boxer obsessed with orange?

My Boxer dog has always been obsessed with anything orange. It started when he pinched babies Tigger from Winnie the pooh. He is drawn to anything stripy and orange. He will go straight to orange toys in the pet shop, stuffed toys in charity shop windows and even his favorite blanket he chooses is orange. I find this confusing as i am always told dogs cant see colours. Is this true? I bought him a orange tiger stripped furry blanket for his basket and he nearly exploded with happiness. His eyes where bulging! I was told dogs only see black and white??? I bought him a orange tiger stripped furry blanket for his basket and he nearly exploded with happiness. His eyes where bulging! I was told dogs only see black and white???

Public Comments

Dogs can see colors, just a more diluted version of what we see. We know this because they have rods and cones in their eyes just as we do!
Dogs do see color. Just a bland version of ours. I have two rottweilers who LOVE LOVE LOVEEEE mountain dew bottles--Or anything green for that matter.
dogs are not color blind They see colors, just not as vibrantly as humans do
Awwwwwwwwwwww. Cute! Your question made my day.
See the link below. It has a few examples of dog vision. http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.veterinaryvision.com/pictures/vision-dog.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.veterinaryvision.com/See.htm&usg=__26y6T0S3oU8h1knEu3gWFFyUleY=&h=217&w=326&sz=45&hl=en&start=56&um=1&tbnid=D8QMuruT5itfxM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddog%2Bvision%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBS_enCA293CA293%26sa%3DN
Dogs have less color receptors in their eyes and therfore can't distinguish as many colors as humans but they still see color.
I think they can tell colors. We had a dog that would freak out if anyone wore white. I don't think they focus as fast as humans do. I guess you proved your point.
That's funny because orange is one of the few colors dogs have a problem with. It amounts to is dogs have two kinds of color receptors (cones) instead of three kinds like we do. So the colors green, yellow and orange pretty much look the same to a dog. The red and blue portions of the spectrom they can see but without any yellow influence.
Dogs are in essence, color blind..........color blind means they can't distinguish between red and green, but they can see colors, they don't see color as vivid as humans so they see in pastel.
Dogs can only see a few different colors. blue, red, yellow, and apparently orange.
I too was told dogs saw in black & white wondered why, then , were dog toys in such bright colours. I bought my one of my dogs a toy that was a navy blue rubber ring holding various other rubber shapes in a variety of colours. She broke the big ring & now will only play with the yellow, orange & red parts & ignores the blue, purple & green. I always wondered how they knew what colours dogs see anyway! Strangely enough, my other dog doesn't care which colour her toys are.
Dogs and Cats can see colors just not as well as humans they say its due to a Special part of a human retina but no one knows for sure, basically you know when you print something in grey scale on your printer you still see a shad of colors like blue and red same thing we see full color they see in an almost grey scale.
Thanks for making me laugh today. You have gotten your answer about dogs seeing in color from many people. I'm glad he likes his blanket. I have a Boxer, and Charlie has an obsession with baby bibs. Whenever my niece comes over with her daughter, he steals all the baby bibs out of the diaper bag!
Dogs are said to be "color blind" but this doesn't mean that they can't see color. They don't see as many colors as we do and the ones they do see are less rich. The receptors in our eyes that perceive color are called cones. Humans have more cones and more types of cones. The cones that dog's have are very similar to the humans blue detecting cones and yellow detecting cones. The following paragraph is taken directly from the book How Dog's Think by Stanly Coren; "Neitz and his research team confirmed that dogs actually do see color, but many 222fewer colors than normal humans do. Instead of seeing the rainbow as violet, blue, blue green, green, yellow, orange, and red, dogs would see it as dark blue, light blue, gray, light yellow, darker yellow (sort of brown), and very dark gray. In other words, dogs see the colors of the world as basically yellow and blue. They see the colors green, yellow, and orange as yellowish, and they see Violet and blue as blue. Blue-green is seen as gray. Red is difficult for dogs to see and may register with them as a very dark gray or perhaps even a black." This book was packed full of interesting information and I recommend it highly.
Only some dogs are colour blind. Anyone who tells you they all are, isn't really bright. Anyways, dogs can see in colour but their colours are way duller than ours. The opposite of cats. Dogs colours are worse than ours and cats are better./