Colored Weave Poles, Background Colors, and Depth Perception
05 Jul 2024
A few times a year someone will post a photo or a video with a statement like: “You can see why Fluffy missed her weave pole entry: look how the weave pole color blends into the background, ring gates, etc. Fluffy never, ever misses his/her entrances at…“.
In Fluffy’s handler’s defense, if you look at a static photo or a video (not showing the dog’s changing view as it approaches the weaves) it seems perfectly plausible.
But, I don’t think similar colors make as big an impact as we might first think. Please read these sections in the following link: Motion parallax and Depth from motion in the Monocular Cues section. Also, Binocular parallax in the Binocular Cues section. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_perception
TL;DR: as dogs and humans move we see nearer objects move in relation to objects in the background (parallax). So that weave pole that is the same color as the background still “moves” in our dog’s vision and that makes the pole stand out from the background.
Here’s a quick video I shot at dog’s eye level demonstrating how a dog’s view of the weave poles changes as they approach the poles - the weaves poles appear to move relative to the background. Because this is a video, it is an example of monocular cues in depth perception. In real life dogs and humans use both monocular and binocular cues to judge depth and identify objects.
I bet only locals noticed the weave poles in Spark’s video during our recent session with Stef Rainer. Take a look at the attached photos from the video.
So I’d say: before we blame the weave pole color/background color/ring side gates/stuff for our dog missing the weave pole entry, the reason might be as simple as “sometimes dogs miss weave entries”. And/or Fluffy’s weave entrance skills may not be as finely honed on that surface, at that speed, at that approach angle, at that arousal/tiredness, etc. with your handling/motion/distance/cues/speed. That’s a lot of variables, that we probably haven’t trained for, that can affect a dog’s weave entrance.
I think dog’s depth perception abilities make the weave pole color not have as strong an influence as we might first think. That said, clubs/facilities that match their weave poles to their building’s wall colors are making it unnecessarily challenging for our dogs.
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