A better look at the poster from my latest art piece "oublie moi". Featuring a maanul posing with a mierthri kyhuine, its not a pet. They're both sophonts!
This is a propaganda piece, the eyes are voluntarily drawn wrong for the kyhuine so it's gaze can be towards the horizon. kyhuines can barely move their eyes and shouldn't be able to look like that, let alone the large round pupil more akin to maanuls. The eyes of the maanul should normally be yellow (as its the norm across the species) but is drawn as solid black to make it more visible and clear at where it's looking.
But it's less weird for it to be like that than the kyhuine, as maanul with "fledgling eyes " is a genetic mutation that isn't so uncommon. Maanuls (and kyhuines) are all born with dark brown eyes, near black almost, and when they age the eyes lighthen up to a yellow. But some people just never have their eyes lighten, keeping the brown color.