One question came to me: do sight coursing hounds have better vision than other dogs? I mean, they course (chase, hunt) by sight so that sight should be better than other dog breed’s eyes.

So I did some Googling. At first I couldn’t make sense of what I read. The quote below is from a forum but matches all the other sources I read:


Quote:

Who has the best eyesight of any breed of dog? According to Canidae, sighthounds, like Greyhounds, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and Basenjis, have the best peripheral vision out of all dog breeds. It has to do with their long, thin noses and the position of their eyes. Some sighthounds have a field of vision of 290 degrees.

https://www.quora.com/Who-has-the-best-eyesight-of-any-breed-of-dog

So the sight of a sight coursing hound isn’t keener—they can’t see finer detail than any other mutt—but they have better peripheral vision. How does that help?

Peripheral vision is excellent at detecting movement! So when the hare/fox/deer etc changes direction sharply the better peripheral vision of a sighthound helps it locate where the prey animal/artificial lure has moved to.


Not what I was expecting to find!

Posted the above on the lure coursing website, see if any interesting responses are made there.