Canine Eye Contact

 

Eye Contact and the Watch Me

One of the most important basic lessons you can teach your dog is that direct eye contact is a favourable experience.  The way us humans communicate with each other is by looking directly at the person we are speaking to, in the doggy world direct eye contact is seen as an aggressive action (a prelude to a fight) so if your dog has not learnt from an early age that eye contact with humans is a good thing you will be in for many anxious moments and stressful situations.

Gaining Trust through Eye Contact

There are many ways to encourage your dog to form the positive habit of always looking to you (rather than at you) for direction or approval.

Put your dog in a sit stay and teach him to respond to “Watch Me” by looking up and into your eyes.  Have a treat in your closed hand (make sure it is a treat that the dog really, really likes) and let your dog sniff your hand, Give him the treat.  Take another treat and draw an invisible line between the dogs nose and yours and immediately the dog looks into your eyes give him the treat and praise profusely.  Repeat this exercise as often as you can throughout the course of the day.  Once the dog has learnt to look directly at you, lengthen the time direct eye contact is given and put in a key word such as "Fido LOOK" or "Fido WATCH".  Patience is the name of the game here as it is not a natural action for a dog.

Another way to encourage this behaviour
When your dog is sat in front of you stroke their head and neck when they are looking at you.  If they turn away, stop touching them.  It doesn't take them long to realise that to get a stroke they have to look at you.  This simple technique helps build the foundations of eye contact and bonding between you and your dog.

Whilst performing these exercises your eyes should express a kind, friendly strength.  Not anger.  Direct, angry eye contact is intensely inflammatory.  Your dog’s expression should be friendly, curious and attentive.  You must work at getting your dogs attention despite distractions.  If your dog has behaviour problems, you must be able to get and hold his attention if you are going to have any success at teaching him a better way to behave.  Without attention there is no learning.  Without eye contact there really isn’t attention.  Practice getting your dogs attention, particularly if he is frantic, anxious, inattentive, nervous, or he forgets you exist.  His mood will improve greatly once his attention is on you – and so will his performance.  Remember to praise and reward all the time he gets it right

Always do at least three /five repetitions of this exercise in one go before you release the dog's attention. This is what teaches your dog to SUSTAIN attention on you until you release it.  Practice this exercise everywhere you and your dog are together, at home, in the garden, out on a walk etc. Remembering to always praise profusely.

Remember, too, that eye contact is a two-way communication. You can't expect your dog to give you eye contact unless you give the dog YOUR eye contact. So while the dog is learning to read your body language, you're learning to read the dog's body language, too. This skill is incredibly valuable to any dog handler, as well as being enormously satisfying. You and your dog will be "talking" to each other without words in ways you never imagined!

Note

Never stare hard into a dog’s eyes, unless he is your own dog, who is absolutely un-aggressive and he has just done something horrendous.  Never under any circumstances should you stare at a strange dog.  That alone could provoke an attack.  Staring is an act of aggression in dogs, just as it is in humans.  Your own pet will learn the difference between friendly eye contact and “WHAT DID YOU DO!”  eye contact.  You can and should look into your own dog’s eyes but you should also know the power of eye contact and use it wisely.