It was once thought that dogs see only in black and white. However, this appears not to be true and they can distiguish between some colours.
So it would appear that:
WE see RED, THEY see pale yellow
WE see ORANGE, THEY see pale yellow
WE see BRIGHT YELLOW, THEY see pale yellow
WE see GREEN, THEY see pale yellow to white
WE see TURQUISE, THEY see white to pale blue
WE see DARK BLUE, THEY see mauve
WE see DARK PURPLE, THEY see grey
In the sport of agility, it’s important for the dogs to be able to see the obstacles clearly against the background in order for the dog to safely negotiate those obstacles. For that reason, the contact obstacles are painted in a contrasting colour to the contact area and the weavepoles and jump bars are striped in a contrasting colour. This is where “contrasting” becomes subjective. Bear in mind that dogs don’t see what we see, so what might seem like a contrasting colour (e.g. orange against green) is actually a same-shade to a dog!
Food for thought!
Graphic above comes from an article by Mark Plonsky
There are two very interesting articles in the January and February 2009 editions of Clean Run covering this subject and more. Well worth checking out.