There are very few people in the world who don’t like Bluey, and the ones who don’t just never gave the show a real chance. Saying global peace could be achieved if all the leaders of the free world cried over “Sleepytime” might be a stretch, but it’s also probably not that far off. Beyond humans, we can add at least one other species that enjoys the Heeler family, and that would be dogs – for real life!
Plenty of people on social media have posted videos of their canines engrossed in an episode of Australia’s biggest animated series of modern times, and these puppers are watching with great interest. According to a new fan theory, there might be a reason why this is happening, and it’s not as far-fetched as you might think.
Why Real Dogs Like To Watch Bluey
The fan theory came to light thanks to a TikToker named Jaclyn Byrne, although the idea has been floated around within the fandom for a while but has now gone viral. They posted this video, with the caption: “If you have a pup, play them Bluey. They use colours that pups can see!”
The video, which gained millions of views, shows the TikToker’s dog sitting in the front of their television intently watching an episode of Bluey. This isn’t an isolated incident, as other people across Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms have posted photos or videos of their pets doing the same thing!
This video suggests the reason why dogs like this so much is because the color palette used in the animated series is one that dogs can explicitly see. For a show as colorful and bright as Bluey to achieve this shows the creators went the extra mile – but is this fan theory actually a credible one?
What Colors Can Dogs See?
According to the American Kennel Club, dogs aren’t entirely color-blind as many folks think they are. In fact, canines have the ability to see and perceive color, just not to the extent of humans:
Dogs have more rods than cones in their retina, whereas people have more cones, and this apparently makes the difference in color perception. Humans and a few other primate species are trichromatic, which means they have three kinds of cones. Dogs are dichromatic, and have only two types.
Due to this difference in their eyes, dogs aren’t able to perceive the full spectrum of the rainbow, and don’t easily see shades of green and red. Blues and yellows are just fine for your tail-wagging pals, and chances are, anything else likely appears to them as greys or blacks – similar to a human who would be color-blind. Knowing this information might help explain why your pets prefer toys in a certain hue over others that aren’t, meaning that yellow tennis ball is more attractive to them than a red one.
If you watch a color-graded version of Bluey that’s made specifically for how a dog would see things, like this TikTok video, you’ll see how little color information is lost when adjusted to what they can perceive. The entire extended Heeler family perfectly fit the spectrum that your four-legged best friend can see, making it a very easy and enjoyable experience for them to sit and watch.
This theory seems very plausible when you look at the visuals of the show in its entirely, as most of the cast fit these parameters. Obviously, things like grass they can’t clearly see, but I bet most dogs can understand it based on the parallel they’d draw to the situations on-screen. If a dog is watching Bluey and her friends frolic in “Shadowlands,” they should be able to figure out the meaning of the scene and easily grasp what’s going on.
This theory has yet to be officially confirmed by anyone on Bluey, but for the time being – it seems like a very believable one. Whether this happened by design or was just the byproduct of the showrunners preferences, it’s still a very cool idea that makes Bluey even more inclusive than we first thought!
