Have you ever wondered why dogs like sniffing your eyes? In this article, you will know and learn the reasons behind this weird behavior of every dog and what you can do about them.
To understand why dogs like to sniff or smell your eyes, it is essential to acknowledge how strong your dog’s sense of smell is. It is thousands of times more potent than humans. Your dog can track lost people and animals. Moreover, it can recognize you and other animals by merely sniffing or smelling them. All of these can be done by your dog only by using the power of its nose. In other words, your dog understands this world through scent.
Why Does My Dog Sniff My eyes?
Why does my dog sniff my eyes? Some of the reasons are that the eyes hold their own scent, it seeks attention from you, it gathers information around you, it wants to recognize you, it smells something from you that is unusual, or that it feels excitement.
There are some factors behind this behavior. However, you might want to consider things when finding the main reason for it and discover the things that you can do about this behavior.
Factors
Below are the lists of reasons why your dog keeps on doing it.
The Eyes Have Their Own Scent
Your dog smells your eyes differently than any other part of your body. They seem to be a specifically sensitive place for a dog to sniff because of the salty tears.
Seeking Attention
Whenever your dog sniffs your eyes, it merely shows you its way of grabbing your attention and bringing a positive vibe within you. Your dog knows that your eyes are a delicate part of your body, so it might think that sniffing your eyes will obligate you to pay attention to it.
Gathering Information
Your dog could be gathering information from the scent of glands, skin, and hair all over your body and face, including your eyes.
As mentioned above, its sense of smell is strong. Sniffing people or things around it permits it to gather information about them.
Recognition and Comfort
As people say, “dogs are a man’s best friend,” and so is your dog. Most of the time, it cares for you more than you care for it. It can sacrifice its own life without hesitation. It can save you from danger or any harm. Sniffing your eye is one of the ways it can be done to bring you signals like he wants to be with your comfort and that it recognizes your presence.
Potential Infections
Another reason why your dog is sniffing your eyes is that it smells something unusual. It might have tracked other irritants that cause your scent to change ever so slightly. If you experience an excessive tearing of your eye or a sudden pain of your eye, your dog has picked up on a fungal eye infection.
Excitement
Dogs’ mothers usually feed puppies from the face, resulting in puppies jumping up to get the food. This act brings them excitement.
Also, if you have noticed, your dog sniffs your eyes once you arrive at home. This behavior indicates its excitement towards you. Otherwise, it wants to gather information about where you have been all day.
Things to Consider on Why Your Dog Sniffs Your Eyes
Below are the lists of the things you might want to consider on why your dog keeps doing it.
What happened when the dog sniffed your eyes?
Typically, if it does not usually sniff your eye area, you will need to contemplate what could be the reason why your pet started sniffing there.
For example, if your canine friend starts to sleep in bed with you, it gives it a hint that potential infections might have been incurred in your eyes. Conjunctivitis is one of the main types of infections that pushes your dog to sniff your eyes. Your dog might be smelling some symptoms of conjunctivitis and that it tries to warn you by sniffing your eye. If it started to sniff your eyes suddenly, it might want to seek attention or gather information from you.
What else is unlikely when a dog sniffs your eyes?
It would also help to consider if there are still things that are unlikely when a dog sniffs your eyes. For example, if it normally does it every time you arrive at home, it might want to gather information about where you have been all day. Also, if it does it more often, it shows you its excitement towards you, or because it wants to be at your comfort.
Things to Do to Stop Your Dog From Sniffing Your Eyes
When the act is left as is, your dog could misunderstand the act as something okay to do; thus leading to it doing it more than necessary. To stop your dog from sniffing your eyes, you need to:
Avoid Tolerating the Behavior
As mentioned above, about the reasons for your dog to sniff your eyes, it would continually do it as long as you tolerate its behavior. So, if your dog starts doing it, try not to entertain it as soon as it does it. With this response, it might give it a sign that you are not feeling good about it.
Give It Proper Training
Patience and consistency are the required character for you as you start training your dog. Be sure that you have prepared some rewards or treats for your dog every time it behaves the way you want it to be.
For example, when the dog starts sniffing your eye when you are around, and you entertain it, the dog will learn that the behavior is good for you and you want it. If you wish to change your dog’s behavior, it will help when you give your dog treats or a reward the way you want it to behave.
To pertain to this:
- Try not to entertain your dog when it starts to sniff your eyes.
- Relax until your dog stops sniffing; wait for a few seconds before you give your attention again.
- For a reward, give a treat to your dog after giving your attention again. The repetition of this process will help your dog to realize that this kind of behavior results in getting lesser attention from you.
