Dogs and Cats: Can they see in the dark?; that’s how your eyesight works
More than once doubts surely arose about the view of your pet such as, if your dog or cat can watch TV, if they are only able to see in white or blackWhy don’t they react to you when you’re away? or they do not find a red ball in the middle of the grass that, for humans, is unmistakable among the green of the garden.
All this is related to the way you see and the functions that your eyes have, unlike the eyes of a human being, since they the view of cats and dogs very different from each other and even more different compared to ours.
The vision of cats and dogs is less sharp than ours, this has to do with their level of visual acuity, which in simpler terms, is the ability to distinguish details, which is less effective than that of humans, and cats see even less detail than dogs.
If you’ve ever turned up in a place unexpected by your dog and you were far away from him, it’s understandable that he didn’t recognize you. In fact, for a dog to see the same as a person with good vision, the pet should be three times closer of the object, in the case of a cat, it must be much closer.
In the opposite situation, if they are too close to an object they do not see it well either, for example children can focus on things only 7 centimeters from their eyes, cats need a minimum distance of 25 to 36 centimeters and the dogs between 33 and 50 centimeters to focus on objects, so if you want to show your little friend something, don’t put it right in front of his snout, this way he will only explore it by smell and touch.
Now let’s look at some of the most frequently asked questions regarding the eyesight and capabilities of these furry ones.
Can they be myopic?
The answer to this is if and when they are, their visual acuity is further reduced, this condition is documented in both cats and dogs, in fact, there are some dog breeds that can suffer from it more frequently than others, if you have doubts on this point with your pet, it is advisable to take it to the vet to be examined.
Can they watch TV?
In this case, it depends on the television and the number of images per second that it shows. When a certain emission frequency is exceeded, the eyes come to merge the images and see a single moving image, while below this frequency, the eyes perceive flickering images.
The frequency required to merge images is estimated to be 55 Hz in cats and 80 Hz in dogs. Televisions are designed for our eyes to see clear, flicker-free images, but the most modern televisions have an image refresh rate that is sufficient even for cats and dogs to watch television well.
If you want to enjoy a program in the company of your pet, it is best to find one with images of other dogs and people for dogs, while for cats, one that shows possible moving prey.
One of the things that people have thought for years is that dogs and cats see in black and white, when in fact, they can see colors, but not as wide a range as humans see.
As an example, let’s see the case of the ball, they see the color red as a dark yellow, the same color that they will perceive with green objects, that is why if you throw a red ball at them on a green background, such as grass, if they did not see it in motion for them to find it will surely require the use of other senses.
Can they see in the dark?
Here there is no doubt, the answer is yes, but never in conditions of total darkness, since there has to be a minimum amount of light for them to see something, yes, dogs, and even more so, cats can see a lot better than people in low light conditions.
Cats need almost six times less light than a human to see anything, while dogs fall somewhere in between, but probably closer to feline than human capability.
So now you know a little more about how your pet sees and how to treat them in a more appropriate way in this aspect in which they are so different from what a human is used to, even in the visual field we are different, andIn ours it is 180º, while in cats it can measure up to 200º and, in the case of dogs, it depends on the breed, but on average it is 240º.
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