are dogs actually colour blind – I'm a Scientist 2024/25

Question: are dogs actually colour blind
- Keywords:
  animals,
  blindness,
  colour blind,
  dogs,
  vision
Asked by away520bhut on 21 Mar 2025.
- Alison Tidy answered on 21 Mar 2025:
  
  They have a form of colour blindness – they have only 2 cone types (20% of the cones in human eyes), therefore their colour spectrum is limited to shades of gray, brown, yellow and blue. We also have this type of colour blindness in humans, and is known as dichromatic vision, and can be found in humans that experience red-green colour blindness.
  
  Best toys for your dogs and therefore yellow and blue to make them really stand out from the background – and probably why the love tennis balls so much.
- Alexander De Bruin answered on 21 Mar 2025:
  
  compared to human vision, they could be considered colourblind, but they definitely do see in colour.

melissau commented on 23 Mar 2025:

Scientists in India did a study recently looking at street dogs (dogs who roam freely in a city or town, rather than living in one home like dogs do in this country. They wanted to know whether dogs had a preference for a particular colour and they tested their question by putting out dog food in different colour food bowls – you can read what they found here
https://www.iflscience.com/indian-street-dogs-may-have-a-favorite-color-78174

Question: are dogs actually colour blind