Do German Shepherds Wink with One Eye?

German Shepherd Dogs frequently wink with one eye. Most believe they are simply blinking using one eye. The wink is not communicating the same thing a human does with a wink.

Why do dogs wink?

Dogs communicate a lot with their eyes, but dogs, including German Shepherds, blink to wet their eyes. Sometimes they simply blink using one eye instead of two eyes.

I’ve had German Shepherds for almost 20yrs and they wink all the time. Blinking using one or both eyes spreads mucous across the eye’s surface to keep them from drying out and for many other reasons.

Here’s a GIF which was created from (image credit) YouTube. (You may have to click the image to see the animation):

Can German Shepherds be trained to wink?

German Shepherd Dogs are intelligent and can be trained to do just about anything. But wink? There’s a video online of a German Shepherd “winking on command”. I believe this video is a fake. My German Shepherds blink using one eye often. I could easily recreate this video by recording them and saying “wink” until they actually winked, then upload the video to YouTube and tell the world that they have been trained to wink. Here’s the video in question:

Does your German Shepherd Wink?

If you have a winking dog, please feel free to tell us about it in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you. 😉

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