My Dog Suddenly Wont Look At Me
Dogs love attention almost as they love food, but imagine a situation whereby the dog doesn’t seem to give a hoot about your attention and suddenly refuses to look at you.
Sometimes, our pooch can be curve balls; hard to understand, but in this post, ill unravel why your dog doesn’t want to look at you suddenly.
My Dog Suddenly Wont Look At Me
Below is part some of the numerous reasons why your dog would suddenly refuse eye contact with you.
Medical issues
The health of your dog is the first thing you want to consider, as our toddlers, health problems can interfere with how they coordinate their behaviors.
Problems with the eyes such as infection, glaucoma, and cataracts may have their share in making your dog look away from you as a result of the discomfort it’ll be causing them. Hence, making eye contact may seem like a big deal for them, so, it’ll be better if they don’t use them.
Neurological issues can also play a role. Rabies and infection of your pooch’s ear can influence your dog’s strange behavior. Infection does stir a lot of discomfort and even causes the dog’s ears to droop.
Fear
Love hormones such as oxytocin are released when humans make eye contact, just the way a similar hormone is released when dogs and humans make eye contact.
Your dog will get happier looking into your eyes if there’s a strong bond existing between you two and if it is what they are already used to.
However, if there is a weakened bond between you and your pooch, eye contact will be a thing of staring into trouble, so the dog will rather prefer to look away than stare or look at you.
Guilt
Despite how you train a dog, you can never take away their mischievousness. Dogs will frequently get into trouble, either chewing your shoes, breaking something, or eating what it wasn’t asked to eat. Dogs feel guilt and will fear the consequences of their actions, hence, they will avoid eye contact as much as they can.
Your dog’s guilt could explain why they suddenly started avoiding eye contact with you. Beyond avoiding eye contact, the dog will temporarily relocate to another room and give a guilty face if you even get anywhere close.
This is just a reaction to its perception of you being angry and disappointed and a dog’s wisdom way of quelling the tension his act must have created.
Issues with how you must have trained him
Training a dog and ensuring early socialization is what determines the interaction between you and your dog.
The absence of proper socialization can leave your dog in the dark when it comes to knowing what to do or expect in certain situations.
Since eye communication is peculiar to us humans, dogs may not be aware of this if they weren’t socialized properly.
Another perspective is that your dog will avoid eye contact with you if it associates looking at you with a negative experience such as punishment. If you were the dog, what better way would you be able to avoid punishment?
Anxiety
Many factors such as fear and anxiety can influence your dog’s behavior.
Anxiety could creep in from a host of sources such as sudden loud noises, moving into a new environment, the presence of new people, or introduction of new pets in the house, or a sudden change in your dog’s daily routine. Avoiding eye contact is just the way they can avoid their anxieties.
Should you be worried if your dog suddenly stops making eye contact?
Except this action is prolonged unnecessarily there is usually nothing to worry about and things will resolve themselves in a matter of seconds or minutes. Avoiding eye contact with you is a usual act with dogs, and it will happen often if the bond between you and your dog is negligible.
Also, in some cases, even when your dog has a strong bond with you, it may still choose to avoid eye contact with you if it is not feeling comfortable with the idea, and in such cases, it is ideal for you not to force things.
You should be worried if the avoidance of eye contact is a result of your dog being afraid of you. Your body language or words you’re saying may put your dog off since they are good at following body language.
If your dog’s avoidance of eye contact is a result of the constant submission, your dog will frequently be in panic and fear, and this will make training the dog or getting your points across become even more difficult since you need eye contact to get them to successfully learn or try things out.
Another area we can look into is the area of your dog being shy. This is funny but yea, it happens! And in cases like this, you need to train and encourage them with affection.
How to teach your dog to make eye contacts
Getting your dog to make eye contact through training is very much possible, but this training would be easier and possible if you train them from puppies. like humans, dogs learn faster at their younger ages.
Choose an environment that is quiet and void of any form of distractions, this will help your dog focus without anything taking away its attention.
The next step is to get your dog’s attention. Peanut butter treats or toys can be very effective in getting your dog’s attention. Hold up the treat to your face, when the dog looks at you, say “good” or “Yes” and give the treats and toys when your dog successfully looks at your human face.
Repeating this process time after time, while extending the amount of time your dog needs to look at you before you hand out the treats will help strengthen your training.
You now want to associate looking at you with a verbal cue such as “look” or “Watch me” and over time, they know you want to make eye contact when you say those things.
The last on the training list is to try out this training in different environments with different levels of distractions, this will help achieve eye contact even in challenging situations.
Final Thoughts
You need to exercise lots of patience when it comes to dealing with a dog that suddenly stops looking at you, you want to examine possible causes why your dog may have suddenly chosen to stop looking at you and solve them if it is caused by you knowingly or unknowingly.
In cases of prolonged avoidance of eye contact, you may want to get in contact with your vet or a professional animal behaviorist in other to solve the possible health or behavioral issues.
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