By 28 days of life your pup has a working visual system. It’s eyes are adapted to operate in a similar fashion to that of humans but because of the positioning of their eyes, which, depending upon the breed, can be set at a 20 degree angle; they have a much greater field of vision.
Whilst due to their large pupils, they can often detect movement behind them which can be a great survival advantage, so whilst a human field of vision only stretches to 180 degrees, a dog’s field of vision will stretch to an amazing 240 degrees. This field of vision also overlaps at the front providing a greater depth of vision when the dog looks straight ahead. This Binocular vision helps when the dog is jumping and catching. Dogs with shorter muzzles will have greater binocular vision.
However, whilst humans can see reasonably well at around 75ft away, a dog will struggle from around 20ft away, so if you are standing still across the the field don’t expect your dog to recognise you immediately from this distance. He will be able to pick you up however, once you start moving as due to having a larger amount of rods in the retina, dogs see moving objects much more than they see standing objects at a distance.
This motion sensitivity is a critical aspect of canine vision and this needs to be taken into account when training your dog – particularly if you want him/her to perform certain actions from a distance based on a silent cue. Your dog also has an astounding sense of smell and will be able to “scent” you from a long way away.
The dogs eye retina is made up of rods an cones, the cones handle the vision by day and colour, whereas the rods deal with nighttime vision.
Dogs can see colour, but only have dichromatic vision as opposed to humans trichromatic vision. This lack of a third colour receptor means they don’t have the ability to distinguish red and green in a similar way to a red/green colour blind human, so a red ball on green grass may be very difficult for your dog to see..
Dogs have adapted to see in much lower light as their ancestors often
hunted at dawn and dusk giving them a much superior and precise
ability to see in various shades of grey than humans.
SO HOW DOES A DOG COPE IF IT IS BORN BLIND OR GOES BLIND ?
If a dog is born blind or loses its sight , its not as devastating as you may think. This is because the dog has other senses that will help it to navigate, such as its amazing sense of smell that can actually deliver a multi dimensional picture to the dogs brain. These dogs can and do survive and still make wonderful pets.
Your Dog is simply amazing !!