Is it true that dogs do not distinguish colors

For some reason, it is believed that all dogs are colorblind. At the same time, if you start studying the question from the point of view of science, you will not get an unambiguous answer. So still, do dogs see colors or not, and why are there several different opinions about this?

We need to start with the fact that color vision is a phenomenon that lies more in the plane of psychology than physiology. The brain colors the world around it, based on the already existing visual experience. In this regard, strange situations arise when different people see the same color differently.

It was necessary to eliminate all kinds of misunderstandings arising in the technical and creative environment. Therefore, people have created special tables of colors and their alphanumeric designations. They help to start not from a subjective assessment of everyone, but from standard parameters. However, even this scientific approach does not guarantee high accuracy of color description. There are different color standards (RAL, NCS), as well as tables created by individual brands (Tikkurila, Pantone).

As we can see, even people can't agree on colors. As for dogs, everything is difficult there at all. We cannot imagine the color perception of these animals. Moreover, we do not know at all whether dogs have such a thing as color. Scientists make all assumptions about this by considering the structure of the dog's eye. It says that the animal is good at distinguishing the brightness of the source, but it does not distinguish its color.

Unlike the retina of the human eye, which contains rod and cone cells, the dog has only the first type of receptors. In order for vision to be full-color, it is necessary to have two types of cells. So almost certainly dogs see a boring world, with a very limited number of colors and shades. At the same time, it is still impossible to say that they are completely colorblind. Alas, we do not know how the dog's brain processes visual signals — perhaps it "colors" something.

In general, for dogs, vision is far from the most important source of information. It is known that these animals are short-sighted and even the owner is not always recognized from a distance of 50-70 meters. But on the other hand, nature has endowed them with a subtle sense of smell and acute hearing, which more than compensate for the shortcomings of vision. Thanks to their nose, dogs navigate even in the Moscow metro, accurately identifying the right station.