How does the dog see?

The dog (Canis familiaris) is a mammal in the order Carnivora. Its eyes belong to the vision type Day dichromat mammal: 2 cones (blue/yellow: reds and greens merge), moderate acuity, visual streak; marmoset males render here, some females render as V01.

Measured in this species: colour, sharpness, field of view, foveas, night vision and motion (flicker fusion). Measured core: measured values on at least 3 of the 6 dials. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.

Sample scene drawn in code: a face with red lips, a green shirt, red and green apples, flowers and a colour strip, as a person sees it. — The sample scene as a person sees it.

The same sample scene rendered by the See Like Animals engine for the dog's eyes, using the values in the table below. — The same scene rendered for the dog (60° field of view, daylight).

See your photo as the dogThis species is in the free set of the tool. Your photo stays on your device.

What stands out

It has two colour receptor classes (a dichromat): reds and greens fall on one axis, as in red-green colour blindness in people.
Its sharpest vision resolves 8.3 cycles per degree: the finest stripe pattern it can tell apart from grey.
Its eyes cover about 250° around the head, with 75° seen by both eyes at once.
It stops seeing flicker at 77.5 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks about 1.3 times slower to it.^[8][9]
Activity pattern: cathemeral.

The six dials

Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.

Vision values for the dog (Canis familiaris), catalogue-v1
Dial	Value	Evidence	Sources
Colour	Colour receptors 2 receptor classes: 431 nm (VS/SWS (violet)), 555 nm (LWS (long)) measured in this species	Measured (not re-verified)	^[1]
Sharpness	Acuity 8.3 cycles per degree median of 1 anatomical-ganglion rows (method priority rule)	Measured (not re-verified)	^[2]
Field of view	Binocular overlap 75° median of 1 rows (eyes-at-rest rows preferred)	Measured (not re-verified)	^[2]
	Total field of view 250° species-v1.csv	Measured (not re-verified)	^[3]
	Blind area behind the head 110° blind area = 360 - total field	Derived	^[3]
	Eye placement frontal frontal if binocular overlap >= 60 deg, else lateral	Derived	^[2]
Sharp zones (foveas)	Number of foveas 0 fovea_present / area_centralis_type (retinal topography; count 1 = fovea present, 0 = none)	Measured	^[4]
Sharp zones (foveas)	Fovea type area centralis, horizontal streak	Measured	^[4]
Night vision	Activity pattern cathemeral mode of 3 rows (of 3 rows): cathemeral; mesopic	Measured (not re-verified)	^[1][5]
	Pupil shape circular	Estimated	^[6]
	Reflective layer (tapetum) yes	Measured	^[7]
	Rods vs cones mixed nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated	Derived	^[1][5]
Motion (flicker fusion)	Flicker fusion frequency 77.5 Hz median of 2 bright-light rows (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [75.0, 80.0])	Measured (not re-verified)	^[8][9]

Comparisons

Dog vs cat

Related animals

Grey wolf same vision type
Arctic fox same vision type
Spotted hyena same vision type
Island fox same vision type
Kinkajou same vision type
Meerkat same vision type

More mammals: all mammals with measured vision data.

Sources

Longcore T. 2023. A compendium of photopigment peak sensitivities and visual spectral response curves of terrestrial wildlife to guide design of outdoor nighttime lighting. Basic Appl Ecol 73:40-50. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2023.09.002. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8432720
Heffner RS, Heffner HE 1992. Visual factors in sound localization in mammals. J Comp Neurol 317:219, Table 1 (via Evo-M1 sensory merge). doi.org/10.1002/cne.903170302
species_v1:Miller & Murphy 1995
Kopania EEK, Clark NL. 2025. Mammalian retinal specializations for high acuity vision evolve in response to both foraging strategies and morphological constraints. Evolution Letters 9: qrae072. Supplementary Tables S1-S2.. doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrae072
Schmitz L, Motani R. 2011. Science 332:705-708, SOM. doi.org/10.1126/science.1200043
Banks MS, Sprague WW, Schmoll J, Parnell JAQ, Love GD. 2015. Science Advances 1:e1500391. doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500391
Schwab IR, Yuen CK, Buyukmihci NC, Blankenship TN, Fitzgerald PG. 2002. Evolution of the tapetum. Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society 100:187-99; discussion 199-200. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1358962/
Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631

Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?