Your Pet's Vision

Have you ever wondered how your favorite animal sees the world? What if he notices the beautiful purple color of the toy you specially chose for him? Let’s see what’s going on in the eyes of our little companions!

Cats have exceptional vision that allows them to hunt in low light, seeing in conditions up to seven times dimmer than what we can manage. This is thanks to a special feature in their eyes called the tapetum. The tapetum is a membrane at the back of the eye that reflects light, which is why a cat’s eyes often glow green when light hits them in the dark. Cats can distinguish colors, but only when there's a high contrast. Their color vision is limited compared to ours, but they excel at detecting movement, which helps them spot a mouse from a distance! This skill is crucial for their hunting abilities.

Dogs, like cats, are sensitive to movement and can detect moving objects up to 900 meters away. However, they need to be closer (about 585 meters) to recognize stationary objects. As for color vision, dogs have two types of cones in their retinas, compared to humans' three. This limits their ability to distinguish colors like yellow, orange, and red, and they have difficulty telling red from green, though they see blue and violet better.

Animals that are prey, like horses for example, have very different vision. Their eyes are located on either side of their head rather than at the front like in hunting animals. This allows them to have 350-degree vision, with blind spots only directly in front of their nose, above their head, and directly behind them. So they can see predators coming and flee quickly! On the other hand, their binocular field of vision (both eyes at the same time) is quite limited, which reduces their precision in seeing in 3 dimensions and their assessment of distances. They can therefore distinguish movements around them very easily, but have more difficulty with details.

It is interesting to see the adaptations of our animals' vision depending on their lifestyle. So we can say that nature does things well!

Written by: Dr. Dominique Girard