Eye Contact With Animals

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I know that when most of us look at people directly into the eyes that we start to feel quite anxious, but how do you all seem to feel when you look an animal or another non-human into the eyes?


Fraser

I rarely look my cats in the eyes unless I want to see if they feel alright or guage their reaction to something. In the case of every dog I have had, that's completely different. I have to be alpha dog so they don't get into trouble. You can't look away and be alpha. So in their case, I do look right into their eyes and stare if they misbehave until they submit.

It was easier to make eye contact with my dog, but unfortunately she had trouble keeping eye contact with me.

I am very good at cat eye contact. My cats often communicate with their eyes...by blinking..
Dogs i am not so inclined...I am kinda scared of dogs..i have been attacked before..too much direct eye contact with a dog can be a bad thing...I have learned from experience. I learned to greet dogs by turning my head and sticking my toung out, which is supposed to mean that I mean no harm..(learned that from a crazy kennel lady)..not sure what kind of basis it has in reality though

I remember as a child having equal problems with gaze avoidance when looking at a picture of a human to. Such as a close up to a face on the TV would trigger my eyes to downcast. Not sure on my dogs. The two very old ones by me now are blind and nearly completely blind so I rarely make eye contact with them anyway.

When I make eye contact with my cats, we usually slowly blink at each other... I think cats communicate with their ears and tails a lot...

I try not to sometimes, I don't want to frighten or intimidate the animal. Staring cats out is what they do when they've got their backs up.

I don't mind eye contacts with my pets. Then again, they're little sparrows. =P

It depends. I do have trouble with animals a lot of the time as well, I tried to look in the eyes of the horses I spent time with, but had issues with that even as they truly do seem to see.... well, to see you inside.

I like eye contact with the pets. My cat, Thai, has the most beautiful eyes. They're extremely deep blue.

I love my dog's eyes. I don't feel uncomfortable at all looking at them.

All my cats like eye contact but not staring eye contact. One of them actually seeks my eye contact and looks right into my eyes.

I have no trouble keeping eye contact with, say, dogs or cats, but I generally try to avoid it because they don't like it.

EDIT: Actually, this isn't so much wasn't so much the cause with my (late) cat now to think of it.

I like making eye contact with my dog but my son doesn't like it. I don't know if it's more to do with eye contact in general (he makes "appropriate" eye contact with humans) or that the dog's eyes reflect a different color and that is freaky. He's complained about it, "I don't like it when he stares at me, his eyes are green".