open eyes?
walk?
just curious
thanks in advance for replies
Open eyes - 9 days
Walk - Anytime after they open their eyes. They do move around before they open their eyes but I dont think you could call it walking as such.
Why are puppies and kittens (and other species too, I suppose) born with their eyes tightly shut, anyway? I can imagine many reasons offhand, but humans and horses and deer are all born sighted (UIMMG), so obviously it’s not a universal mammalian phenomenon.
I can’t speak for all mammals but human babies cannot see hardly at all when they are born. By most definitions human babies would count as blind for awhile. At first they can sense light and dark and then shapes but it takes awhile for full resolution to come to them (a week or two I think). You can test this with babies as at first their eyes will not track on you or objects you hold near them. Over time this improves till it is clear that the infant can see you.
9 days? wow is that for all breeds or does it vary according to size and whatnot?
Okay, Whack-a-Mole, so human babies are effectively blind at first…but their eyes open, so they’re still different from cat babies and dog babies.
Can damage occur to these animals’ vision if their lids open too soon? Are the physical structures of the eyes still developing after birth? These are the (hijack) questions I’m wondering about.
As to the OP this site says the following:
Eyes open about day 10.
Walk around day 20.
This is just a WAG but perhaps because puppies and kittens are born in litters (i.e. more than one animal) keeping their eyes shut is more important. As they squirm for position at their mother’s teat they wiggle their legs and what not. In such crowded conditions they may inadvertantly scratch a neighboring sibling. While such a scratch is nothing on the furry body it doesn’t take much to damage an eye.
Horses, deers and humans don’t have this issue to deal with.
I post more than my share of misspellings and bad grammar but good grief…I should have known better about this one.
Deers should read simply as deer. Sorry about that…
As WAGs go, that’s a pretty good one about the getting-scratched-by-one’s-littermates, Whack-a-Mole. Thanks, dear.