Just a quick check in for Monday Miles. We log in with 8 miles bringing us to a grand total of 147 miles for the year.
The last two weeks continue to be slow walking for us since Magnus is still on limited activity and then last Thursday he took a turn for the worse. We went back to the vet today this afternoon, but more on that later.
Since other than vet issue’s I have nothing too exciting to share, here’s some interesting trivia for your Monday Miles. Do dogs see in color?
I’ve heard dogs are color blind. I knew that wasn’t strictly true. I know from Meeka that dogs appreciate some colors more than others. I have no idea why, but our big girl would always choose a pink toy. Even after reading this explanation in Psychology Today about what colors dogs can see, I still don’t know why she loved pink. You could hold out two exact same toys to her and if one was pink she’d choose that one every time.
"Just cause I'm big and black I can't love pink too?"
The article explains, “dogs actually do see color, but many fewer colors than normal humans do. Instead of seeing the rainbow as violet, blue, blue-green, green, yellow, orange and red, dogs would see it as dark blue, light blue, gray, light yellow, darker yellow (sort of brown), and very dark gray. In other words, dogs see the colors of the world as basically yellow, blue and gray. They see the colors green, yellow and orange as yellowish, and they see violet and blue as blue. Blue-green is seen as a gray.”
So I can’t say what color Meeka was seeing when we handed her a pink toy, but whatever color it was she liked it!
So if dogs see primarily in shades of yellow, blue and gray why do they make dogs toys in every color of the rainbow?
The simple answer is marketing. Humans see and are attracted to vibrant colors thus we choose the brightest toys even though what we see wont be what our 4legged friends see. The article explains, “One amusing or odd fact is that the most popular colors for dog toys today are red or safety orange (the bright orange red on traffic cones or safety vests). However red is difficult for dogs to see. It may appear as a very dark brownish gray or perhaps even a black. This means that that bright red dog toy that is so visible to you may often be difficult for your dog to see. That means that when your own pet version of Lassie runs right past the toy that you tossed she may not be stubborn or stupid. It may be your fault for choosing a toy with a color that is hard to discriminate from the green grass of your lawn.”
Remember your level 2 Training Levels homework? “List ten possible reasons a dog may not “obey a command”. You can now add “The dog may not be able to discriminate the color of a toy thrown.”
Who new trivia could explain dog behavior too?
