For a start, stand still, focus on a point directly ahead then stretch your arms forward palms together then slowly open your arms keeping your focus on the point ahead. At the point when your palms start to disappear from view that is your “field of vision.” At very best, this will be approximately 180 degrees (a straight line), but in reality, for practical use, it is probably more like 60-70 degrees.
A dog with its eyes on the front of its head will have a slightly wider field of vision, however, dogs like greyhounds, Salukis or any of the sighthounds who have their eyes on the side of their heads have a field of vision of around 250 degrees hence they can see backwards!!
Other factors to note when understanding what your dog sees are:
Your dog is much lower to the ground so to try and replicate what he sees you need to go down on your hands and knees and for very little dogs lay flat!!
Contrary to popular belief, dogs see in colour albeit the colours are restricted and compared to a humans sight. The dog’s vision is not so clear. To compensate for any deficiencies in sight the other senses are far greater than ours.
Dogs see better in the dark than us but we see better in daylight.
It has been observed that a working sheepdog can see a shepherd’s hand signal up to a kilometre away.
A rather strange but little known fact is that in certain parts of the world a dog can see what is on the tv screen and in other parts of the world the dog will only see fast-moving dots all depending on the transmission frequency.
The technical stuff is way above my pay grade but inquires lead me to believe that in Europe your dog can see the television !!
I am indebted to Dr Bruce Fogle M.B.E. D.V.M. M.R.C.V.S.for the technical information contained in this article
“Dogs are not our whole lives but they make our lives whole.”
Roger Caras
With subtitle or not?