Dog communication

Dogs that are familiar with each other may lick each other's faces in greeting, then they begin to sniff any moist membranes where odours are strongest.^[1]: 124

The mucus on a dog's wet nose traps particles from everything the dog has recently smelled or eaten. When dogs meet, they smell each other's noses to see what the other dog did that day and if there is any food nearby.

Dogs yawn when they are tired (like humans) or under stress.^{[1]: 120–122}

Dog communication refers to the methods dogs use to transfer information to other dogs, animals, and humans. Dogs may exchange information vocally, visually, or through smell. Visual communication includes mouth shape and head position, licking and sniffing, ear and tail positioning, eye contact, facial expression, and body posture. Auditory communication can include barks, growls, howls, whines and whimpers, screams, pants and sighs. Dogs also communicate via gustatory communication, utilizing scent and pheromones.^[2]

Humans can communicate with dogs through a wide variety of methods. Broadly, this includes vocalization, hand signals, body posture and touch. The two species also communicate visually. Through domestication, dogs have become particularly adept at "reading" human facial expressions. Dogs recognise and infer emotional information from humans.^[3] When communicating with a human, their level of comprehension is generally comparable to a toddler.^{[citation needed]}