the color of dog toys

lilysdaddy · #1 03-15-2001, 05:51 PM

My female, Lily, will only play with yellow dog toys. When I first got her she showed no interest in toys whatsoever. Then on day I found her having an absolute ball with a yellow plastic garden hose sprayer attachment. Since then I have found that if I give her yellow toys, she will play all day with them. If I try to give her toys of any other color, she sniffs them once and looks at me like "yeah, so!"

Has anyone else seen in their boxer a particular fondness for yellow toys or any other color for that matter?

wildchild · #2 03-15-2001, 06:59 PM

I have always heard that dogs are color blind. While were on this subject, could some bodt answer that question for me.

madjam · #3 03-15-2001, 07:36 PM

Jamaica always steals the blue clothes pegs out of my peg bucket. She now has a pile in a "hiding spot" (not a very good one, obviously) along with two of her blue toys.

But, she doesn't care, she'll play with anything!

Julie

Laura luvs Boxers · #4 03-15-2001, 08:26 PM

My Molly has this Yellow 'Y' shaped soft plastic toy with three different color rubber balls at the ends of each tip. She will only play with/put her mouth on the blue one. My husband and I put a sock over the blue one one day and she went nuts. She would not touch the toy at all until we uncovered the blue one. How wierd and funny!

JulieM · #5 03-16-2001, 01:24 PM

Dogs can see some blues and yellows, although not like people do. There is some information on that here:

http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/dvision.htm

Ever notice that agility equipment is blue and yellow? There's a reason!

warmellie · #6 03-16-2001, 01:30 PM

I don't think dogs are color blind persay, at least they don't see in just black and white. They don't have as many color receptors in their eyes as humans do..so it is thought that they can see color..but not the same way we do. They can also see better in low light conditions than we can...

I have also heard dogs can't see the television, but I know this isn't true because Lucas tried to attack a dog on television..he knew exactly where it was

Anyway, here is an article that explains dog vision in detail...

http://www.nahra.org/nahra/vision.htm

Toward the very bottom it discusses color vision in dogs.

Lucas loves his Kong which is red. After he started really playing with it..I have noticed he gets my sons red toys too....for example...a small Elmo and Po the red teletubbie. I have saved both Elmo and Po from Lucas often since he started playing with his Kong. So I think he can see red in some form...maybe not the way I see it...but he definately can tell all these red objects are the same color

Jessica · #7 03-16-2001, 02:20 PM

My husband and I have discussed this, too. Not that we know much about it.

It just seems that both Jake and Zoe tend to play with red toys. We've tried buying toys in other colors, such as blue and black, but they don't seem to care about those. They love the kong, this three pronged toy, a ring, and a ball, all in red! They even fight over these. And, yes, I agree, they can see TV because they often watch it if we are. I catch Jake trying to run up to the dogs on the screen and Zoe will even get scared if they bark! Too funny.