Can animals hear you just as well over the top of a hill?

[CEAuke]

So when you walk down a hill you can see far so going slow doesn't feel very painful. But when I'm about to hit the apex of a hill going up, do I really have to walk slow and cause minimal noise? In real live, I think without direct line of sight/hearing, the sound will be much lower as well. So if I can normally be heard 100 yards away on a flat area, is the same noise and range applicable to when there is the top of a hill between me and the animal?
Also, is all of this physics, just meta lore or is there somewhere in the game where it is explained. E.g. I see there are upgrades for being less audible in rain. But does it say anywhere that you can normally make more noise in the rain without being heard? (I assume this is true).
Bonus question. To what extend does my dog make noise? Is he's heeling, and I'm going really slow, is his noise limited to mine? Or does his various positions have their own noise? Why ever let the dog sit vs lay down or wait? Lay down always seems the best option no?

[Nightwalker]

Although terrain features can occasionally reduce the volume of the vocal sounds animals make they don't seem to interfere with how well an animal can detect the noise I make.

Perks that reduce visibility or audibility during adverse weather seems to work both ways. Both I and the animal have difficulty detecting one another.

Supposedly, the dogs activity does not bother the animals. They seem to be designed to distract or bother the hunter. By having a dog a player with poor tracking ability gets a plus and a minus by being distracted or bumped into by them. I think part of reason we have dogs at all is to cover up the need for the devs to fix the vanishing tracks/carcasses bugs.

[Findus]

It's not just the sound. In my experience (and logically, if we consider computation cost), visibility is also not affected by things like having a line of sight / having a big rock, tree or hilltop between you and the animal. The only thing that matters is your visibility level and distance. I might be wrong about that, but assuming it's true, the same should apply for sound, which would be even more challenging to simulate in a more physically correct way.

[Cptn_Miller]

sound, wind direction (animals smelling u), and sight... crouch/prone helps with sound if u suspect something is close, scents can help with smell, tree stands and tripods help with sight - can call animals to u. combine all 3 and u should be golden.

dog doesn't spook animals, u do... seems to me he actually spots stuff that i didn't see with a bark (like rabbits/deer), if predator/danger near he growls (lions/wolves ect)... and if lions or wolves are that close and u didnt see them - u are in trouble lol.

[CEAuke]

this seems to make (sad) sense. Thanks for all the replies.

[Vedo]

Not a lot of people realize just how basic this game is. What you see visually and what make sense doesnt matter, the visibility meter is all that matters. If its a line and you are literally just standing next to a barren tree, you are completely hidden. If you are completely covered to the point where you cant see out but the visibility meter is circle or half circle, you are not hidden at all.