Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences have discovered that dogs can tell the difference between colors using two kinds of color receptors in their eyes.
Although they can't see the full spectrum of colors, dogs can see shades of yellow and blue.
Previously, it was thought that dogs could only see brightness rather than color,but the researchers found when studying a small group of eight dogs that the animals were more likely to recognize a piece of paper by color rather than by brightness.
To test this, the researchers printed out dark yellow, light yellow, dark blue and light blue paper and put a piece of raw meat behind one color of paper for the dogs to find.
They used either a combination of dark yellow and light blue, or light yellow and dark blue in individual tests.
After training the dogs to associate one of the colors of paper with food, the researchers then switched the combination to see if the dog just recognized the brightness and associated it with food, or if they would recognize the color.
The data shows that six out of the 8 dogs went for the same color 90 to 100 percent of the time.
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