Key Takeaways on Why Animals Smile

• Just because an animal appears to be smiling does not mean that it is actually happy. Approaching an unknown animal with caution is always wise.
• When it comes to animal emotions and emotional expression, context is key.
• Misunderstanding or misreading animal expressions can lead to consequences, like bites.

Your dog might be smiling when they seem to be enjoying themselves, but does that mean that they’re smiling from happiness? The same thing is true of chimpanzees and felines, who may also appear to be smiling but for all sorts of reasons.

According to Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, animals might be smiling from happiness, but scientists can't say for certain based on facial expression alone. Because of this, it's important to observe an animal's body language before getting too close or interacting with it, regardless of whether it is a pet or a wild animal.

Read More: How Does Captivity Affect Wild Animals?

An Animal's Smile Depends on Context

There is strong evidence that animals experience joy, but does that translate to a laugh or a smile? In fact, one study published in Neuron found that when you tickle a rat, it laughs and even vocalizes its joy. But unlike humans, whom we can ask whether their smile is the result of happiness, when it comes to other animals, context matters most. While many animals have the musculature to produce a smiling facial expression, that doesn’t mean happiness is why they’re doing so.

Bekoff, an animal biologist who has spent years studying animal behavior in the field, explained that when you’re deciding whether or not an animal is happy, you have to look at context. For example, the personality of the animal, who they’re interacting with, and what they’re doing at the time.

“You interpret facial expression by taking everything into account, the whole body and the whole context,” Bekoff said to Discover.

Sometimes, what looks like a smile could be a grimace. Bekoff said that he’s seen wild coyotes look like they’re smiling when really they’re panting after running. They may also be grimacing when they see an animal that they don’t know or that they know and are afraid of.

“It’s best to resist a single explanation for what could be complicated facial expressions,” Bekoff said to Discover.

Humans are similar to other animals like dogs in that they too may give off ambiguous messages when they smile, and they too might smile from something other than happiness, according to the American Psychological Association.

If you’ve ever known someone who smiled when they were nervous or laughed awkwardly when something went wrong, you know that, like dogs and cats, you have to look at the whole picture before deciding whether a person is happy when they’re smiling.

What Happens When You Misread An Animal’s Smile?

Bekoff explained that when people claim that they have a pet that seems happy because it smiles often, one should be cautious because this miscalculation may have negative repercussions beyond bad science.

He tells the story of a fellow scientist who had a dog that he thought smiled from happiness. But Bekoff, who is also an animal behaviorist, said that when he watched the dog’s whole body, he felt like the dog was a bit unsure and smiling might have been a side effect. And while his facial expression seemed to be happy, that wasn’t actually the case.

This matters because misreading an animal’s emotional cues can lead to getting bitten, a problem that seems to be growing as humans come in closer contact with their pets. A study published in 2025 in Anthrozoös found that when children misinterpret animal expressions, it can have terrible outcomes.

The study found that hospital admissions related to dog bites have increased yearly, and that young children are the most affected.

Researchers found that one of the causes for the increase in dog bites is that humans in general have difficulty interpreting a dog’s facial expressions and, as a result, may think an animal is happy and relaxed when it’s not.

If a dog is walking towards you with a loose gait and their tail and ears up and they’re smiling, then they’re most likely happy.

“In this case, they could feel comfortable, and they could also feel happy,” Bekoff said to Discover. But if you see a smile alone, don’t just interpret that as happiness.

Still, it’s not always easy, Bekoff explained; some animals that he’s known for years are still difficult to interpret emotionally.

“You still have to look at their whole body,” he said to Discover.

Read More: Meet the Adorable Quokka, Known as the 'Happiest Animal on Earth'

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• This article references information from a study published in Neuron: Play and tickling responses map to the lateral columns of the rat periaqueductal gray
• This article references information from the American Psychological Association: A meta-analysis of the facial feedback literature: Effects of facial feedback on emotional experience are small and variable.
• This article references information from a study published in Anthrozoös: Look, He’s Smiling! Children’s Misinterpretation of Dogs’ Facial Expressions