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Houdini of Alika Cotons is a handsome Tri-color who earned his name as an Alika puppy pen escape artist! His eyes appear blue in the portrait above, but you are not seeing his iris, which is deep brown in color. Instead, you are looking through his wide-open pupil to the back of his eye, where dogs have a specialized structure called a tapetum lucidum. When you take a flash picture of a human, from just the right, head-on angle, you may notice red eye shine. That's the blood vessels in the back of our eye reflecting back at the camera's film (or digital imager). For a dog, we see instead a layer of reflective tissue, the tapetum. The tapetum is a specialized structure that reflects light that would otherwise be lost back through the retina's receptors, thus increasing the dog's ability to see in darkness. Here--and in many Alika Cotons--the tapetum is a beautiful blue; for most dogs, the tapetum is a bright yellow. Functionally, the colors make no difference. You can also see a bright, blue tapetum reflecting back at the camera in Perdita's portrait, below. Perdita of Alika Cotons was given her preliminary name after the famous stray Dalmation who helped take care of Mrs. Dearly's puppies...
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And finally, sweet Tri-color Electra of Alika Cotons, either a Greek Godess or the love of Cathy in the comic strip Cathy. . |
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