An “It’s true” factoid from the commuter rag:
I assume that this is suggesting that pigs and dogs can taste pure water.
Is it true? What experiments would you do to determine this?
Which commuter rag?
Technically, all animals have a “taste” for water. We know (indirectly) when we’re dehydrated, so we get cravings for more water. The same way we have a “taste” for salt, and actively seek out more when we’re deprived. Or when it’s Monday Night Football time.
Yesterday’s (Tuesday 8 January) mx.
My knowledge on taste sensation is incomplete, but until further evidence surfaces, I’d chalk up their statement to a layperson seriously misunderstanding something.
I think the OP was asking if dogs can differentiate between samples of water, based on the taste.
Well, what differentiates samples of water except the relative amounts of minerals dissolved in it? H2O from a spring is going to be the same as H2O from the sewer. The important bits are everything that isn’t H20.
If we’re asking if pigs, dogs, and people can tell the difference between various samples of water with different things dissolved in it, then the answer is yes. Everything alive can do that, either by taste or by osmosis.
I’m really just trying to find out what the “fact” that I read in the newspaper is supposed to mean.
To me it implies that pigs and dogs experience some sort of “taste” when they drink absolutely pure water - something that humans can’t do, since we supposedly need the water to be adulterated with chemicals or impurities before we taste anything. I just wonder how anyone could determine whether a pig or dog actually experiences a sensation of taste when drinking pure water.
The more I think about it the more I realise that the “fact” it’s probably just rubbish filling up space in the free newspaper.
I can’t tell the difference between bottled water and tap water. Maybe I’m special that way.
That’s one part of the statement that confuses me, too. It’s possible that they are going off of some new research on dog and pig anatomy, but none that I’ve heard of in any of my veterinary classes. As far as I know, there are only 5 kinds of receptors in mammalian mouths, and they respond to salt, sour, bitter, sweet, and “savory” or umami. And the umami sense is still under debate. None of those is water. In fact, the taste bud nerve endings can only respond to chemicals that are dissolved in water. So being able to taste the water molecules seems at best redundant.
Moreover, if pigs and dogs can taste water, then they would be constantly tasting their own saliva. So that’s confusing too.
Furthermore, aside from water being really good at dissolving things, drinking pure water would set up an osmotic gradient against the cells of your mouth and throat, making them expand and burst. If you set a bucket of just H2O in front of a pig and a bucket of tap water, and it chose the pure H2O, it would damage its throat make itself sick. So how they determined that dogs and pigs had a preference for pure, de-ionized water I have no idea.
How can such a small phrase make so little sense?!?
<head explode>
The only part that does make sense is the bit about us tasting impurities in the water. Of course, they use the words “chemicals and impurities” so that it sounds like you’re getting a dose of antifreeze unless you buy Perrier. So the subtext gives me another <head explode>
Um, dude-- are you saying that distilled water will make my throat explode if I drink it?
I just wanna be clear on this before I freak out. Because if that’s what you’re saying, you’re, like, crazy.