Do German Shepherds see in color or black and white?

Answer 1

Dogs can see colors

Dogs not only see in shades of gray but also can see distinct colors contrary to what most people belief. About one hundred years ago some scientific tests were made to find out more about the color vision of dogs. But these tests weren't that scientific as they thought and the researchers concluded only that color vision doesn't play a part in the daily life of a dog.

Only about 90 years later distinct researches have shown that dogs can perceive colors. Neitz, Geist and Jacobs researched in 1989 the color vision of domestic dogs and found the following facts:

1. Dogs have two different color receptors in their eyes and therefore are dichromats.
2. One color receptor peaks at the blue-violet range, the other at the yellow-green range.
3. Conclusion: Dogs are green-blind which is one form of red-green color blindness also called deuteranopia.

This results were support by later researches of Jacobs with colleagues in 1993 and Miller and Murphy in 1995.

Dogs are colorblind

This directly leads us to the second question concerning the color blindness of dogs.Colorblind doesn't relate to not see any colors but describes the fact that you can't see the same color range as somebody with normal vision. Because of that any kind of color vision deficiency is called color blindness. Therefore dogs are colorblind because of their dichromatic color vision.

Colors dogs can't distinguish

Actually the color spectrum made up of wavelengths of light is the same to all of us. Only the perception of those colors can be quite different. As dogs only have two different color receptors in their eyes they have problems to distinguish certain colors:

• Red - Orange - Green
• Greenish Blue - Gray
• Different shades of Purple

The list is not completed and there are a lot of different shades which can't be differentiated if you are colorblind. And the conclusion is dogs can see colors but are at the same time colorblind.

Answer 2

black and white