Do Dogs Prefer Incans on Walks?

I walked our younger pet, Bailey, tonight despite the thick heavy ice on the sidewalks tonight illuminated with my SF E1E. It got me thinking about whether the dogs "like" incans over leds for walks. I did notice that the E1E did not seem to trouble the dog as the UltraFire C3 had seemed to distract her when last used for a night walk.

What has been your experience with incans vs. leds and your pets for walks?

I have asked my dog on numerous occasions which he prefers, and I either get "that look" or some version of "whoof whuff."

I asked my dog what she thought of incans, she just said "rough rough"

TOOCOOL said:

I asked my dog what she thought of incans, she just said "rough rough"

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Wait....you mean you are not a dog?

No that's just the costume I wear

No.

Most breeds of dogs have a clear preference for hurricane lanterns or shielded candles.

The exception seems to be Siberian Huskies, which are quite partial to HID illumination.

Small dogs, such as poodles and terriers, will tolerate incandescent light, but will be happiest with Argon bulbs, in preference to Krypton or Xenon. Vacuum bulbs are OK, as long as the bulb envelope hasn't darkened too much.

Sheepdogs, such as kelpies, and cattledogs seem to be the most tolerant of LED illumination, but a detailed analysis of tint colour vs breed is really yet to be done.

And labradors are happy with any flashlight, as long as it is edible.

lctorana said:

No.

Most breeds of dogs have a clear preference for hurricane lanterns or shielded candles.

The exception seems to be Siberian Huskies, which are quite partial to HID illumination.

Small dogs, such as poodles and terriers, will tolerate incandescent light, but will be happiest with Argon bulbs, in preference to Krypton or Xenon. Vacuum bulbs are OK, as long as the bulb envelope hasn't darkened too much.

Sheepdogs, such as kelpies, and cattledogs seem to be the most tolerant of LED illumination, but a detailed analysis of tint colour vs breed is really yet to be done.

And labradors are happy with any flashlight, as long as it is edible.

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That must have been an interesting study to determine all that!

Maybe the driver in the LED light makes an ultra-high pitched noise that bothers your dog. I know a lot of LED lights will 'whine', as most of my Fenixes do.

It certainly gives paws for thought.

lctorana said:

No.

And labradors are happy with any flashlight, as long as it is edible.

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I almost just spit my coffee accross the keyboard on that one...good one!

Dogs have dichromatic vision. That doesn´t mean "black and white vision", but they see different of us, humans. They just have green and blue pigment in their retinas.

LED or incan, it doesn´t matter to your dogs.

A fact is: dog´s vision is specially sensitive in dark places. They percept a lot of more than we in darkness. I never shine my lights in turbo mode directly in my dog´s eyes.

Curiously, my dog likes the same lights than I !! He loves my Surefire L1, my Fenix TK20, and now he is crazy about the new Icon Rogue 1. It´s impressive how he always stare to the computer screen, when I´m seeing some pictures of those Icon Rogues...

GOOD DOG!

I read this thread and got interested. My dogs are very expressive and communicative, so I thought maybe I could get an idea which of my lights they seem to react best to.

It's fairly subjective but my dogs seem comfortable around my PWM-driven LED lights but are fine with current-regulated or direct-drive lights.

I think you may be onto something with the PWM whine idea. Heck, on a couple of them I can even hear the whine, so it must be quite loud for them! It's just a theory though I suppose.

Mine prefers a treat in the dark, to a walk in the light (LED or incan).

Strauss said:

I almost just spit my coffee accross the keyboard on that one...good one!

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And very true! My Lab could eat 3 entire hams and then look at you as you finish your sandwich with a begging expression...

Federal LG said:

Dogs have monochromatic vision. That doesn´t mean "black and white vision", but they see different of us, humans. They just have green and blue pigment in their retins.

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Actually it's dichromatic vision, monochromatic is only one color, but this is a great point to be made and I believe dogs are stronger in the blue end, so maybe this might go as a +1 for led?

This thread has clearly gone to the dogs.

I think most dogs would not care one way or another except for the noise factor which I think may be very valid. That does not mean they do not perceive a difference between types of light. I expect they do but it would take a scientific study and at least $20,000,000 of taxpayer funding over ten years to come up with the answer. I simply mean I have never seen my dogs, which are sighthounds, behave any differently towards one light versus another.

It might be a good idea to have a light that is more of a flood instead of a tighter beam when walking your dog. I've found that my friend's dogs tend to chase the spot beam of flashlights. That can be fun, but a bit distracting perhaps. As for LED vs. Incan, I don't think it makes a difference. Use the type you prefer. I'm sure the pooch won't complain!

My lab doesn't seem to care, will eat anything but my lights thank god! He doesn't like it when i take too long to decide which light to take on his walk though.

My educated guess here might be that dogs would prefer incandescent but not because it helps them see better, actually the opposite. With only blue and green sensitive cells in their retina, any light source biased towards the reds will appear far less bright to a dog than to a human. As a result, it won't interfere with their night vision as much. Dogs instinctively wouldn't like a light which tends to drown out the night vision they depended upon for survival prior to domestication. Remember that the dogs we have as pets are only a few millenia removed from wolves. They undoubtedly still possess all of the survival instincts.

The ability to hear frequencies most humans can't might be another reason some dogs might not like LED lights. Although most driver boards operate in the hundreds of kHz, there are still much lower resonance frequencies. Sometimes these boards even make sounds humans can hear.