Do you look animals in the eye?

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i don't, eyecontact feels like a sign of agression or assumed dominance, wether it is with a human or not is irrelevant.
i will use direct eyecontact to intimidate animals if needed, but that's about it

I will give eye contact to animals, but humans are a bit more difficult.

Good question.

I do find it much easier to have eye contact with animals. I try to be aware of which ones might find it threatening and avoid it then of course. But I didn't find it consistent with dogs. Some are fine and don't mind it. It makes others nervous.

Doing a little reading I found it is ok and relaxed between most owners and their dogs and is an additional form of communicating. You can actually train a dog to accept eye contact and is a good way to get their attention. But with other dogs you should not make direct contact as it is a sign of being dominant and may make them uncomfortable or aggressive.

I have kind of a fear of dogs so not really with them besides my own but ya I do. I have a Balinese cat and it has really pretty blue eyes, when it looks at me I always wonder what it's thinking.

I think that depends on how you look at them. I always make it a point to make eye contact with ever animal I see, domesticated or wild and I have never had any animal think of it as a threat. They can feel your intent and if you have a love of love and respect for them and have no threat in your heart towards them they can tell. Sometimes I give them a very loving, long, deep blink and they usually reciprocate with the same blink back to me. Cats usually really love that.

Staring into my cat's eyes is no problem for me. They'll just either stare back or meow and beg me for something.

I should mention: dogs take staring as aggression. So it shouldn't be uninterrupted eye contact - that would upset the dog.

I have no problem with it--in all honesty, sometimes I feel like I can non-verbally communicate better with animals than with people. Dogs can really say a lot with their eyes, although it is true that prolonged eye contact can be seen as a sign of aggression, especially with dogs you don't know.

Yep. My cat is dominant and he does the same!

Animals, yes, I make eye contact.
Humans, no, I do not make eye contact, usually.

I have no problems with making eye contact with animals.

I have no problems with eye contact with animals.


But it really depends on the animal, the setting, & the context....Because eye contact is often apart of dominance & intimidation, I only give or receive eye contact with an animal if it feels proper to do so. I actually seem to interact and understand animals rather well, as far as picking up on and understanding their body language and other very subtle nuances that they convey.

I literally never talk to pets, or any animals, in words. I communicate with them solely through simple sounds (different clicks, whistles, etc), eye contact, facial expressions, body movements, and other intuitive "feels" . I just get on their level of understanding/communication, more simple, basic and "animal" like communication.


When it comes to people there's often just way too much coming at me to take it all in, process, understand, and then respond to properly.

I don't have trouble looking the dog in the eye. In fact I do it to intentionally irritate Ol' Snarl n Snap, my dog.
That is a game, he tries to bite me, I try to escape just in time while not getting bitten.

(he cannot bite hard)

My turtles get very stare-y when they are hungry and I can look at them. There's also two cats my friend has and I can make eye contact with them. I just can't make eye contact with him...

I do this with my cats sometimes, too!

A few months back I learned they now have service dogs for diabetes that can sniff out their owners' blood sugar status and prompt them when they either need insulin or to eat. Interesting that they only select dogs for training that can maintain eye contact for longer than 15 seconds. I guess it can be learned but evidently the ability for dogs to tolerate eye contact longer than that is considered rare.

yes! thumbs up for looking dogs in the eyes.
I disagree dogs take eye contact as aggression, I think it is part of a whole context of domination and body language. When I look at dogs' eyes instead of getting aggressive they happily come to me to receive some petting. And I do it all the time. I think if they are not in a tense state or showing tense/dominant body language they are okay with it. Probably the ones that get aggressive have owners that don't know how to be dominant. If the owner is dominant and knows how to raise dogs than they are not aggressive.

what do you mean?