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Dogs use their eyes a lot in their communication. They can change their shape of their eye or do repeated blinking or not blink at all. In fact during their domestication dogs have developed extra muscles above their eyes, making them able to form those cute puppy eyes we all know.
Most people know of the hard stare and not to look an unknown dog directly in the eye but there are many other ways a dog uses his/her eye when communicating both with conspecifics but also with humans.
Blinking is one way a dog uses to communicate. Blinking is when the dog opens and closes his/her eyes rapidly or slowly. Often repeatedly after one another. Blinking can have different meanings and should always be interpreted along with the rest of the dog’s body signals, the environment and the stimuli surrounding the dog.
Blinking as a calming signal
Blinking is most commonly seen as a calming signal towards another individual (Read more about calming signals here). A dog might use blinking to make sure that the approaching individual knows that the dog poses no threat through avoiding eye contact and only giving short glimpses with either exaggerated slow blinking or blinking in a higher rate and repeatedly.
Blinking can also be used as an appeasement signal if a dog finds an oncoming stimuli threatening and is here used to slow the oncoming stimuli down so that the dog can feel comfortable with the interaction.
Example: A human is in a park and wants to take a picture of his dog. He takes out his camera and points it at the dog. The dog is standing and looking at her human. Her body is relaxed, with the tongue hanging out, slightly panting from the play session they have just had. Her eyes are soft as they observe her human taking out the camera and pointing it towards her.
As the camera comes out and is pointed towards her, she does a slight head turn, and sits down. Her human moves the camera closer to get her in frame, the dog finds this a little threatening and does another head turn with repeated blinking and a lip lick.
Blinking due to stress or fear
Blinking can be one of many different signals a dog uses when being afraid, stressed or insecure in a situation. In these situations the blinking might occur with the dog panting or doing a stress grin. Blinking is one of the more subtle signs to notice but might be one of the first signs to occur and by being able to notice it you can help your dog through the stressful or scary situation (Read more about fear in dogs here).
Example: A human family is having visitors. Their dog, a cute little fluffy girl is approached by the visitors all wanting to pet her. The dog is insecure about these strangers approaching her and violating her space by petting her. They even stare at her for a long time. The dog tries to avoid the contact by shrinking her body, lifting up her paw and while turning her head she repeatedly blinks in a fast rate to try and calm down the incoming stimuli (the petting).
When we try to decode our dog’s communication we should always look at the entire body, the environment and the surrounding stimuli. It is only then we can give the best estimate about what our dogs are trying to communicate.
If you want to learn more about dog body language and learn how to communicate better with your dog, go check out our dog body language library here.
