My dog has night vision!

[Tala]

My dog can recognize my cat outside in the dark, at a distance.
I know this because she watches other cats and small animals like she wants to chase them - but not her "siblings" -- so I know she recognizes it as family, even in the dark, even at a distance.
Apparently she has really good night vision??

I always hear that dogs don't see color very well, dunno if that's true or not.
My childhood dog was about blind, so a dog that sees this well even in the dark just amazes me!

 

[babalubird]

I wonder if she is really recognizing her by sight or by her highly developed sense of smell. Connie

 

[Tala]

Well, it's not JUST that to make me think she sees well. She notices other animals that might escape someone who didn't see as well (grey cat against a concrete wall in the dark, for example) but I thought it might be easy to notice a movement, harder to differentiate between a pal and a chase. That's what made me realize she probably sees better than I do - at night anyway.

She DOES have a great sense of smell. She'd make a good tracking dog if I knew how to train her. Of course, she also has great ears. Today she growled at the back door (from laying across the room in the living room floor) --- and I opened it to find a chicken standing out there! That's pretty good hearing IMO!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Dogs and cats actually have adaptations of the eye that allow them to see at night. The human eye is black at the back, while the dog, cat, or other nocturnal animal has white in the back of their eyes to reflect as much light as possible. This is one of the main reason you see the reflections of their eyes at night. They cannot see in complete darkness (No animals can actually *see* in pitch black) but when there is a little light either from the moon, in the distance, or even from the stars, they have pretty decent vision.