Dog VIsion and Awareness?

WrylyBrindle

I am trying to reconcile a few facts, maybe you inus can help me!
In the mail this weekend, I got Your Dog Newletter, in which they discuss canine vision briefly:

"Their acuity is about 1/3 of humans, so their sight is blurrier than ours, but they are able to detect moving objects much better. Their ability to focus on near and far objects is much reduced however. They can focus best on objects 13 to 25 inches from their eyes."

Poetically, we also got my daughter's Ranger Rick mag- in which they describe coyotes noticing circling ravens or vultures and following under them for a tasty carrion snack.

Poking around on the web supports that most breeds of dogs are mypoic (near sighted), although some lines of GSDs have been found to be far-ther sighted than others, but wild canids are far-sighted. Some articles are skeptical that coyotes actually can associate circling birds with dead meat and food.

My half-kai, Sage, never fails to notice circling birds, even so far up that I cannot see them without looking slightly "off' the center of my eye. It is exciting to him, (or upsetting!?) and he will run- hackles up, head up, barking at it hard. He doesn't react to flapping songbirds or flying ducks, or robins on the lawn. My greyhound cross doesn't notice, doesn't watch the sky at all really.

If Sage can't focus that far, he must be detecting motion-only? Although sometimes the birds are just hanging there motionless, but he sees them. What would cause a dog to have such an emotional response to such a distant stimulus? Could he have a learned association of the circling birds with aggressive sharp birds that can hurt? or is he crazy? Maybe he has a vision anomalie? Is the slow circling motion just creepy to him? I can probably make up a sad story about why he fears/hates birds of prey, given his beginnings, but I prefer to go on facts as far as they'll take me.

When I took him to Tufts for his behavior consult, the Dr observed that he is much more 3-D than most domestic dogs (her thesis work had been on coyote-beagle crosses and her own dogs are New Guinea Singing Dogs, so she knows something about the wilder canid cousins.) he is concerned about Up, she observed.

Do your dogs watch the sky, or alert at really distant things? Is it a primitive dog thing? Is it a kai thing? What do you know, observe? I am sortof hoping someone will tell me it's just a kai thing and he's not crazy.

Calia

During a walk through New York City, first time for my guys, Tikaani would go after every pigeon on the ground and in the air. Now, there are practically just as many pigeons as people there, so this was a very frequent thing. Watching him, I've noticed that he would try to "play" with the pigeons high in the sky. Tetsu, and really any other dog I know, is never really interested in flying birds so this intrigued me. Watching Tikaani, he would try to go after flying sea gulls and geese, and even song birds in the tree. I have also seen Tikaani watch planes fly pass, showing a desire to get to it. Compared to Tetsu, Tikaani has a higher prey drive, and I think that that helps motivate him to try and catch the birds. I know Tikaani is not a nihon ken, but he is a spitz type to help compare with.

Likewise, I am very much near sighted, objects blur beyond a foot away. Without my glasses, everything becomes shapes and shadows. I have noticed that it is easier to decipher light and dark, as well as easier to see certain types of movements. It's hard to see something like the trees or grass shaking in the wind, but very easy to see some sort of out of place movement. When it comes to watching birds fly, it is very hard to see them unless they contrast the sky or are moving very quickly or suddenly. I don't know if this is helpful at all, but thought I'd share a little of what being near-sighted is like

WrylyBrindle

Tikaani counts- he's on the More Ancestral end of the dog spectrum!
If the theory is that wild-er phenotype canines are more likely to wonder about Up, we must include him!

I am doubting that Sage is nearsighted, like most dogs are supposed to be- I don't think he could see these birds so high if he was. Moving so slowly.

Calia

Here's another idea/thought...the possibility that searching in the skies is a learned ability. Or maybe it is something associated with hunting/retrieving type dogs. Several types of gun dogs (spaniels, retrievers, pointers) can have the tendency to 'look up' in an attempt find a catch. They aren't very primitive breeds, but they are more reliant on their sight than other breeds.

Many hunting dog breeds have been bred with a focus on either sight, sound, or smell. With a focus on one, the rest are somewhat weakened. Greyhounds can see a small rabbit whizzing through a field, but how well would a blood hound see it. Nihonken, from what I've read/heard, chase and corner their target. So they need to have very good eyes in order to follow their target, as well as be able to avoid running into trees and such.

StaticNfuzz

I don't know if it is just a primitive dog thing or not. My dobermans watched everything. I certainly think it differs from dog to dog and their developed spacial relationship to objects to their position. I also think like people some eye sight is not as good as others.

For the most part based on observation I would say the Shiba has an sensitive spacial acuity but that is just a hunch. I have one Shiba that looks at all things flying, planes, birds, bees, buzzards way high etc. However, the interest at first made him forget there was a fence so he darn near clobbered himself. He had to coordinate all of that.

Most of the Shibas seem to learn about up and down and boundaries based on their spacial proximity. For example learning that there is an above view and a looking down view and distance. The deck to our previous town house required them to understand there is more than one vantage. When they started to learn this at first the pups would get really excited and run all the way from the back yard through the house to get to the deck and then run back down to look back up. As they did this in pairs or apart they began to realized the dynamic of up and down. They loved it once they figured it out and it became a game. I wish I had a video of that progression. However, learning that there is height drop can be problematic. We currently do not have a deck now. We were away at a friends over the weekend and our younger Shiba jumped on a chair on the deck and decided it might be a good idea to jump to the top rail with no concept of the drop that lay behind.

So it is a learning process. Same goes for learning to squeeze the last inch out of an escape hole under your fence. Those "fu-manchu" wiskers are there for a reason.

Snf

WrylyBrindle

Here's something interesting from wikipedia:

"Different breeds of dogs have different eye shapes and dimensions, and they also have different retina configurations. Dogs with long noses have a "visual streak" which runs across the width of the retina and gives them a very wide field of excellent vision, while those with short noses have an "area centralis" - a central patch with up to three times the density of nerve endings as the visual streak - giving them detailed sight much more like a human's. Some breeds, particularly the sighthounds, have a field of vision up to 270° (compared to 180° for humans), although broad-headed breeds with short noses have a much narrower field of vision, as low as 180°."

I had never heard this about short and long nosed dogs...

lindsayt

The only time Ike completely tuned me out was when we were at the beach and he realized there were seagulls overhead. He tore up and down the coast line running faster then I have ever seen him go chashing the birds in the air. My mom was able to grab his long line, but he was completely tuned out from us for a heartstopping few minutes. Beebe dislikes birds and usually has an eye on the horizon for anything overhead (including laser lights on the ceiling). I am glad they watch the sky because it really has helped to keep the ravens and squirrels out of the yard.