Post: Eye Contact Is Not A Service Dog Skill

Of all the weird dog tricks out there, “Watch Me” may be the weirdest.

Trainers of this trick often recommend holding a treat over your nose or between your eyes, and when the dog looks up, you drop the treat.

Eventually you can just touch your nose or point to your eyes, and the dog looks up.

I once had a client (who had worked with another trainer before us) who said she felt silly walking around the mall with her finger on her nose. I don’t blame her!

Here’s why it’s a weird trick to teach…

Dogs make eye contact all the heckin’ time!

Eye contact is part of natural dog behaviour, just as it is for humans. In fact, a study found that if a robot acts social or has eyes, dogs will make eye contact with it.

Dogs make eye contact with their owners when they want to ask for things. They get our attention by making eye contact. They wait for US to make eye contact with THEM. Just seeing your face is like a treat for your dog.

Every darn day I see people walking down the road, their dog looking up adoringly into their face, while they study their phone, totally oblivious.

We need to train the HUMANS to make eye contact with the dog, and to notice when their dog makes eye contact with them.

I’ve seen owners ignore three or four attempts from the dog to make eye contact, only to turn and demand eye contact when the dog did something they didn’t like.

Maybe dogs should wear phones on their noses.

Let’s not get weird about it.

While making frequent eye contact during social interactions is normal and even necessary for dogs, people sometimes want the dog to stare at them obsessively for prolonged periods, which is frankly weird.

Have you ever asked your best friend or your romantic partner to walk down the road while making intense prolonged eye contact with you? Try it. Walk together from one street corner to the next without breaking eye contact. Does that feel normal?

When we walk, we need to watch where we are going. We can still glance at each other, match pace with each other, and be aware of one another without unceasing prolonged eye contact.

Service dogs need to walk thousands of steps a day with their person. If they did this while gazing upward constantly, they’d end up with neck problems, and walk into objects all the time.

Attention Matters, Not Eye Contact

Autistic people already know this. We don’t need our eyes to listen. We don’t need our eyes to know where you are walking. We can hear you and smell you and feel the wind you make as you pass by. We don’t need eye contact to pay attention. 

In fact, we can focus so hard on trying to make eye contact that we don’t pay attention to what you are saying. 

Dogs are like that, too.

We motivate our dogs to pay attention to us in many ways. We zig zag or change direction while walking. We play a silly game where we quietly hand the leash to someone else and dodge into a store so when the dog glances back, they’re surprised to see someone else holding their leash.

We reward our dogs for checking in with us, for listening to us, for noticing when we speed up and slow down. We teach them to look away from distractions.

The eye contact? That comes naturally.