“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.”
–Martin Buber
Have you ever truly looked at your dog’s eyes? Gotten lost in all the colors and patterns, the striations and lines? For that matter, have you really ever looked at your own eye? They aren’t just brown or amber or green or blue; a symphony of color exists in the iris. In people, there have been studies that suggest eyes really are the window to the soul–certain patterns in the iris seem to be linked to certain personality traits. To my knowledge, no one has tested this theory in canines. There have been, however, studies on cognition and perception in dogs by testing their ability to track our eye movements and read our intent. Dogs, they have found, are very good at following our gazes, though some breeds and individuals are better at it than others.
Of all my current dogs, Zella makes the best eye contact. She will watch my face very closely and look where I look, especially when she wants my help in finding a frisbee. She will follow my gaze and go in that direction, periodically stopping to look back at me to follow my line of sight again until she finds it. Grimm “looks” for frisbees by snuffling around with his nose or he follows Zella’s lead–he doesn’t watch my eyes the way Zella does. When Zella is unsure of which toy to bring me to play with, she comes up to me, whines, and watches my eyes closely. When I look at the toy I want her to bring to me, she will return with the correct one. Pointing at the toy doesn’t work as well with her, unless I look at it also. Charley and Zella will make eye contact with me, look at the back door, then make eye contact again when they want to go outside. I am still waiting for Grimm to learn some of these behaviors from them. He pretty much just gallops along wherever they go. Whereas Charley and Zella have seemingly mastered communication using eye contact, Grimm has barely scratched the surface. All of my dogs know the “Watch Me” command, which is useful for getting their attention and keeping them distracted from trouble, but young Grimm has the attention span of a fly.
It goes both ways–we can learn a lot about a dog by looking at their eyes, too. A “whale eye” or dilated pupils in a dog can signal fear whereas squinted eyes can relay excitement or appeasement. Most people at some point have seen the “hard eye” of an aggressive dog or a dog that means business. For some dogs, making eye contact with a human can be considered a threat. Some dogs naturally follow a human gaze, others have to be taught. Learning how to communicate with your canine companion can be challenging–I’m still trying to figure out what works best for me and Grimm. It’s hard enough at times to communicate with other Homo sapiens; I’m always amazed that we humans do as well as we do with Canis lupus familiaris.
Grimm's Furry Tail 