whale eye
n.— «When a dog turns his head away from you but his eyes are turned as far to the side as possible in your direction, the whites of his eyes take on that crescent shape. When a dog’s eyes take on this appearance, professionals in the field refer to it as “whale eye.” This visual sign is thought to occur because the dog is so afraid that he is not looking at you, but he’s too afraid to take his gaze away from you entirely. » —“The Eyes Have It —what Can Be Seen In A Dog’s Eyes” by Karen London Dog Behavior Blog May 12, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...
While reading Dean Koontz’s book The House at the End of the World (Bookshop|Amazon), a listener in Ramona, California, encountered the perfect word for the walks he takes with his dog. He now refers to such an excursion as a sniffari. This is...
The “whale-eye” you mention is really called the “baleful” look. It doesn’t indicate fear, at all. In fact it is a really coy way for a dog to tell you that you have disappointed him, missed something, or generally have failed to be “the kind of person your dog thinks you are.” We call it the “white-wall tire” look when our Black Labrador retriever discovers something amiss in his routine daily expectations!