I am the designated licorice eater at work. Another will eat “shudder” Buttered Popcorn, but she wouldn’t touch Caramel Corn, which is similar. Another coworker tosses all the Juicy Pear for some jerk reason, even though everyone else likes them and are one of the best flavors IMHO.
How much are Belly Flops? $9 for 2 lbs, but equivalent of regulars at Costco is $2-3 cheaper. Next time I go home I will check out the store.
Oh yeah, this thread is about dogs… too bad they don’t make a cat poop flavor (yet…).
One reason dogs don’t chew food is because for the most part (at least with kibble and treats and small or soft food) is that they don’t really have to…they don’t have much in the way of digestive enzymes in their saliva.
I’ve fed primarily raw (meat, bones and so on) to my dogs for over 12 years and every one of them has had obvious preferences. Dog one will not touch rabbit in any form, the other two will. Only one will eat ground/whole duck, (but the cats eat it.) The one who won’t eat rabbit also won’t touch pork.
It may also be a texture thing. It’s quite common for dogs fed raw to dislike raw slimy liver, but they’re snarf it down if frozen or cooked.
Interesting information. One thing that makes me believe that dogs can taste is that when I had a cat as well as a dog, the dog would almost always prefer the cat’s food to his own. I asked a vet about this and it seems that cat food has a much higher meat content than dog food. Apparently cats must have a high intake of meat, while a dog could in theory live on veggies if it had to.
So, my dog loved the cat food and I would assume it was the yummy meaty flavor of said food.
BTW, what breed of dog is the one who won’t eat rabbit or pork? I don’t think I have ever seen a dog who wouldn’t kill for either.
Cats are obligate carnivores, dogs are biologically carnivores but can live on a fairly varied diet. Not that I think vegetarian food is a great idea for dogs, but they can do well on it apparently.
Current dog who won’t eat rabbit or pork is a JRT x heeler. A previous Rottweiler would actually leap backwards in disgust when offered rabbit. The labrador is the only dog who will eat ground duck (they usually get whole animals or parts thereof, but I get some ground stuff for the cats) which is OK because it’s sort of spendy.
They must. Cats too. Over the last 20 years I’ve had 3 dogs and 3 cats (not all at the same time). All of them appeared to eat anything given to them with the exception of puke flavored jelly beans. All 6 of them spit them out even though every thing else (including turds) got woofed down with no hesitation. Even our favorite kitty ever, a Chartreux named Napoleon, who would eat anything presented to him would spit up the Harry Potter vomit Jelly Bellies. We would laugh hysterically as he would give us the craziest “What the f*ck” look.
I can see how dogs must have to use smell and/or taste, or what would keep them from eating chunks of asphalt? But a trainer at the obedience school where I took my dog said that dogs actually don’t have a well-developed sense of taste, so that all the dog food commercials touting beefy chunks or cheese bits or whatever were designed to appeal more to humans, who are, naturally, the actual buyers. She said dogs just don’t care. Except for truly evil smelling/tasting medicines, that’s been true of dogs I have owned. But that doesn’t explain the picky eaters people are posting about here. So I dunno.
Cats kinda do the same thing, I realize. We have to large males who can take their time eating, and a tiny female who can do the same. The other female has to wolf food down, because she is naturally a grazer, and was the “original” who didn’t grow up competing. In the dynamic, she is probably the most submissive (or fearful). Now she eats real fast and, at least one per goddamn week, pukes it up fifteen minutes later. Luckily(?) the boys are on cleanup crew (where’s that pukey smiley?).
Which is so obviously not true that she clearly didn’t even stop to think about it for even a second before spouting it.
Dog food contain as much cereal as possible, for economy reasons. So try a simple experiment. Put some bland baby-food type cereal in one bowl, and in another bowl put a 50:50 mixture of the cereal and fried bacon. If Obedience School Chick is correct, then the dog will eat the bland cereal first at least 50% of the time, because it can not taste the bacon, and the bacon is only added for the benefit of the human owner.
This is obvious nonsense. Of course the dog will eat the bacon in preference to the gruel. The bacon is a massive taste enhancer for the dog. This doesn’t mean that dogs won’t eat gruel, they will. What it shows is that the bacon isn’t just their for the benefit of the human. It really does make the food tastier to the dog.
As you note, dogs won’t eat thing s they consider “evil smelling”, so they clearly do care.
Of course dogs will eat almost anything, they’re dogs. Hungry people will also eat almost anything. That isn’t evidence that they can’t taste, that they don’t prefer the taste of some foods over others or that the taste enhancers added to food are only being used for the benefits of humans.
My cat , Boris, only eats Fancy Feast. 9 Lives and other brands will decay in front of him. When they get stinky, I toss them out.
I fed my old Shepherd Kibbles and Bits. He ate all the kibbles and ignored the bits, or visa versa. It took him a while to empty the bowl.
I had a beagle a few years ago. I put 4 different foods on the floor and let him sniff them. Then let him loose. he ate them in order of fat content.
Don’t try and figure out animals. you have a better chance of predicting your wives behavior.
What makes you think they don’t eat asphalt? I am trying to remember the one Southern writer that once had a column on a dog that ate the driveway. I have had my puppies chew on asphalt a number of times.
Dogs do display a range of appetites. I hardly see how many ever taste much that they eat. And smell is important. Others do insist on refusing certain foods and eating others. The more they are fed. the more likely they are to be picky. On anther site, I must see a dozen questions a day on dogs that won’t eat. Quite often people have fed them human food. Of course there are always knownothings suggesting tempting them with rich food. I suspect many of the recommendations to switch to more expensive foods come from the small part time reps that distribute them. I always direct people to How To Tell if Your Dog is at a Healthy Weight – Long Live Your Dog
Most of my personal experience is with lean young Labs. All but 1-2 of the 18 I have had have varied from greedy to down right awful. Same with many more I see. The one even after switching to a more concentrated food, still didn’t eat enough to completely hide his ribs. Since he was at least fit to take out in public, I wisely left well enough alone.