A fascinating simulation has offered insight into how a dog might perceive their human companions.
This is a question that intrigues anyone who has ever shared their life with a dog: how does your furry friend actually see and hear you?
Dogs experience the world through senses that are quite different from ours.
To begin with, their eyesight differs significantly—if dogs were like humans, they’d likely need glasses due to their generally near-sighted vision.
For a dog to see an object as clearly as a human does from a distance of 75 feet, they would need to be just 20 feet away. Additionally, dogs don’t see red, orange, and green as we do; they are best at recognizing blues and yellows.
However, it’s not all bad when it comes to canine eyesight. Thanks to more rods in their retinas and larger pupils, dogs are better adapted to low-light conditions and are more adept at detecting motion (think mailmen they might want to chase or sticks being thrown).
According to PetMD, dogs have 10 to 20 times greater motion sensitivity compared to humans.
Dogs’ hearing also has its unique characteristics. They can detect sounds that are twice as high in pitch as those humans can hear, reaching up to 45,000Hz, compared to the 20,000Hz upper limit for humans.
This means dogs can hear the noises of insects and rodents that elude our ears, as well as subtle sounds like the hum of electric lights and digital clock mechanisms.
Furthermore, they can pick up sounds that are about four times quieter than humans can, though they are less sensitive to lower-pitched sounds.
Their perception of time differs from ours as well. Due to a higher metabolism, time for dogs seems slower—what is an hour for us might feel like 75 minutes to them.
The BBC Earth documentary Secret Life of Dogs highlighted: “Dog’s eyes process what they see more quickly than we do. It’s almost like they see in slow motion.”
But how does this translate to real-world experiences? How does the world appear from a dog’s perspective?
YouTube creator Benn Jordan set out to simulate how dogs might view their surroundings.
In the video, the camera captures a dog’s perspective from ground level, with colors appearing more vivid and objects less distinct than they would to humans.
Jordan mentions in the video that dogs perceive time approximately 33 percent slower than humans do.
As a result, when he played back the footage, all sounds, including his voice, were lower, and the actions appeared slowed down.
The clip prompted many viewers to comment on social media, sharing their thoughts on the remarkable simulation.
One person humorously noted how humans might seem ‘slow’ to dogs, saying: “Crazy to think they’re still our best friends when we are so slow to them lol.”
Another expressed that they suspected dogs might see humans as slower due to their relative size and speed, writing: “Wow. I always thought that, just due to size difference and movement speeds, that dogs would perceive us as slow lumbering giants. But I had no idea how true that was.”
Another individual remarked on the astonishment that dogs view the world in slow motion, stating: “In my wildest dreams I never imagined that dogs perceive the world in slow motion.”
Yet, it’s important to remember that this visual representation doesn’t fully capture a dog’s experience, as their sense of smell is paramount.
Dogs possess 60 times more scent receptors than humans, and the area of their brain dedicated to smell is 40 times larger.
While their vision might not match ours in clarity, their remarkable sense of smell enables dogs to be trained to detect even something as subtle as cancer.