Most pet owners, whether they admit it or not, have wondered what it would be like to see through their pet’s eyes. Conflicting rumours that cats and dogs only see in black and white have been passed around for years but no one can really say what it is like to see through the eyes of your four-legged friend, until now. Lasik Eyes, a leading online resource for laser eye surgery, has assembled a team of experts to perfectly recreate the world as your pet sees it, from the monochrome world of the cat to the very green perception of a dog, these gifs give new insight into our furry friends and perhaps allow pet owners to understand their companions that bit better.
Dog
Humans have three colour detecting cells (red, green and blue) called cones, which enable us to see the full-colour spectrum. Dogs, however, only have two cones (yellow and blue). This means that they can’t distinguish green, yellow or red objects based on their colour. However, they can still distinguish a red ball from a green one if there is a difference in the perceived brightness of the two. Dogs’ vision receptor rods mainly concentrate on peripheral vision so are faster at detecting motion in response to less light.
Cat
Cats have a visual field of 200 degrees, whereas humans only have 180 degrees.
This means that cats have a wider peripheral vision. They also have better night vision to aid with their their natural nocturnal hunting behaviour.
Rabbit
Unlike human sight, rabbit vision isn’t designed for hunting. Instead it’s designed to quickly detect approaching predators – therefore, the eyes are placed high and to the sides of the skull, which allows the rabbit to see nearly 360 degrees. The price for this vision is a small blind spot directly in front of their face, but forward-placed nostrils and large, spooning ears compensate for that minor gap in vision.
Gecko
Humans have very poor vision in low light. This is because the cone cells work best in relatively bright light. Geckos, on the other hand, have excellent colour vision at night – a useful advantage for a nocturnal hunter. In fact, their eyes have evolved to be up to 350 times more sensitive to colour at night than humans.
Campbell Thompson BVM&S MRCVS, of Cheshire Veterinary Clinic comments: “Though we cannot be 100% sure this is the perfect rendering of animal vision, these gifs give us a chance to see some of the known differences between our eyesight and that of our pets. Many keen pet owners have a tendency to think of their pets as a mini version of themselves but this shows that the way our pets see the world is actually very different from us. I wouldn’t feel too sorry for them though, what they might lack in colour, they make up for in other senses such as their superior sense of smell – which makes their experience of the world probably a lot richer than ours in reality!”