I have cooked for a variety of dogs over the years…I have noticed that most dogs like human foods, with some exceptions:
-citrus fruits-most dogs hate them
-anything with chili/red pepper: dogs dislike this intensely
-salads and cucumbers
-dill pickles
On the like side:
-plain white rice:most dogs love it
-garlic:I had a shepherd mix that loved beef stews with lots of garlic
-seafood (particularly with garlic)
The shepherd mix loves chicken cooked with organic string beans, in a light wine sauce
So some dogs have pretty sophisticated palates. They really get into food!
All of our family dogs eat commercial dog food and are given no choice in the matter…it’s Beneful or starve. But…
Now there is a toddler in the mix, and the Rottweiler is doing floor patrol, eating anything that gets flung from the high chair, like waffles and strawberries. But my daughter noticed something odd…sometimes she buys regular strawberries, sometime organic. Depends on where she is shopping and what is on sale.
The Rottweiler will only eat organic strawberries. The normal variety get left on the floor.
When I rescued my baby he came with a Baggie of Science Diet and he was painfully skinny. I started cooking for him, mostly boiled chicken or roasted chicken. I noticed he did not care for the Science Diet.
I went to a pet store and got about 15 different samples and tried them all over time. There was one, “Orijen” that he really liked. I have to order it online as the store stopped carrying it. It is premium about $3 per lb.
He fattened right up and now almost 6 yrs later he prefers his ORIJEN.
He does eat some human food including fruits and dill pickles.
My dog loves spicy food.
He’s strange.
Blackjack loves beef, bacon, cheese, and pizza crust. Most other things are a weak second. He despises chicken.
They really seem to love cat shit!
:smack:
When I was a kid, we had a dog who would eat the leftover cereal and milk out of our bowls. If presented with Raisin Bran, she would leave a sparkling clean bowl, marked only with a small pile of very licked-clean raisins. Apparently she hated raisins enough to leave every last one while finishing the other scraps of food.
Due to our habit of giving her pancake leftovers in the same fashion, she would not eat a tiny plain pancake (made of the last dregs of the batter) until a bit of syrup was added. It took my mother a while to figure out what the problem was.
She would also bark and growl at jello. Didn’t trust people-food that would move, I guess - and she was quite the mouser so she knew about hunting prey.
My dog absolutely loves eating the cats’ food. We have to put the cat food dish behind a baby gate to stop her from eating it. Wet cat food is apparently even more insanely delicious than the dry cat food, though she loves both.
This particular dog also seems to have a particularly strong sweet tooth. Even though we all know chocolate is toxic to dogs and don’t intentionally give it to her, she has sometimes managed to steal remnants from a chocolate pastry or such from the trash and seems to have developed a taste for chocolate. She’ll go for almost all kinds of cookies, cake, and candy. One time, I accidentally left a bag of jellybeans where she could reach it and she tore into it. Surprisingly, the dog is not at all obese despite this. 
At least at this point, she is so active that she doesn’t put on weight.
In addition to jellybeans, cookies, etc. I have also seen this dog eat soap. Yet she doesn’t like Milk Bones at all and will seldom eat them.
That actually doesn’t surprise me. Perhaps there is some kind of pesticide residue or horticultural wax on the non-organic strawberries that a sensitive dog nose can detect and he is turned off by that.
All of my dogs have loved salad fixings—especially cauliflower—and dill pickles, and my chihuahua (may he rest in peace :() even liked oranges. There are very few things they won’t eat, come to think of it.
dogs can love any shit; cat, deer, coon, dog.
i’ve seen a dog eat a gut pile and shit while eating, and then turn around and eat what it just shit out.
I had a yorkie as a child who loved to finish off the plate of scrambled eggs after breakfast on weekends. He loved the yolks, just not the whites. Somehow he could separate them with his tongue and leave a little pile of whites.
They have special powers.
My Labweiller will eat any human food. Except raw mushroom. She sees you eat them, she’ll want to have some, but as soon as you give her what she wants, she will chew them like she wants to taste them and she will spit them out., Strangely, she will eat them in spaghetti sauce or on pizza. Haven’t tried her out on a mushroom omelet yet.
My St-Bernard, just loves Italian food. In fact, anything with tomato sauce on it. For my previous St-Bernard (the uncle of the current one), fish was is favorite.
I had a doberman years ago that I fed Pedigree to. She would carefully pick out all the green pea-looking pieces and leave them piled next to the bowl.
I had another doberman you loved fruit. Citrus, peaches, apples, it didn’t matter. I’d generally eat an orange every night, and he sit quiet;y beside me, drooling the whole time, until I gave him the last slice.
StG
It really surprised me to learn that dogs love carrots. One of the ladies at adoptions would bring raw carrots in and all of the dogs would snarf them right up.
I think dogs are just plain idiosyncratic. I’ve never yet met one that didn’t like fresh meat, but that’s about the only common thread I’ve seen: For any other given food, there will be dogs who like it, and dogs who don’t.
My dog, whom we adopted maybe 8 years ago (I think) was NEVER going to have table scraps according to my husband. Who then gave him a bowl of chili that same night we brought him home (he looked sad, the husband said. :rolleyes:)
Now, Baron eats everything we eat - he will eat produce, he will eat raw meat, he will eat cereal, he will eat ice cream -= there is aboslutely NOTHING - and we’ve wondered and given him a range of foods to eat - NOTHING he won’t eat.
He ate some grapefruit this morning.
Then again, my dog also knows how to moo for treats. Don’t ask - long story.
You are so right. Dogs are garbage gut omnivores. They do better with lots of meat, but they first came to humans to eat the trash. They have spent centuries adapting to that diet. Their short gut allows them to eat spoiled meat and puke or poop it out and then be fine.
That said, I would always advise that people should feed their dogs a quality diet that has balanced amounts of protein and carbs and limited amounts of snacks.
I’m sorry, I really do need to ask about this
Good thing – raisins and grapes are also toxic to dogs.
My dog would eat a roll of nickels if I dropped it in her dish.
My dogs are fed a raw diet and get fruits and veg in addition to their meat and bones. Favorites are apples, carrots, and zucchini (which they will eat off the plants if I’m not careful). They will eat pretty much whatever drops on the floor once they’re given permission, though. One thing that get them running into the kitchen is the sound of the pickle jar on the counter.