Ask Lemmy

I mean, animals don't necessarily experience taste in the same ways humans do. What tastes terrible to me may still be very appealing to a dog or cat etc., regardless of taste.

Animals don't taste the same way we do. For example, cats don't have the receptors for tasting sweet things...so they can barely detect sweetness at all.

Dogs only have 25% as many taste buds as humans, so most things have a very mutes taste for them. Plus, every dog I've ever had absolutely LOVED cat shit covered in kitty litter, so I never put much faith in their sense of taste.

Yeah, they'll have flavors they like more or less, just like us, but even we can't trust our sense of taste as a metric for nutrition...if we could, we'd all be addicted to brocolli and spinach instead of processes foods and sugar.

A friend of mine back in middle school did a science project on what cat food tastes the best. He used his cat as the main experiment, but when he presented his project he also had samples for everyone to try and vote on their favorite. The cat liked Science Diet. The consensus among our classmates was Meow Mix.

Yep. I've tasted kibbles and baked treats / cookies. They're generally not great, but the ones that taste ok are also my dogs favorites. Usually just like a sugar free human snack.

I do a lot of dried sardines as snacks and a couple Chinese coworkers tried them, they said they taste just like their version but without the salt and spices.

I feed my pets raw, so haven't tried those. They seem to love it though.

Milkbones taste like an unsalted pretzel. I was a bit stoned and teasing my dog.

wondered why your pet might not like particular foods?

No. It's the same reason that you don't like particular perfectly good foods. They're attuned to different factors, but it's the same process to appeal to them.

I feed my pet things that I eat, too! Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, various squashes, fresh blueberries, etc.

Except for his bugs. I don't like cockroaches or worms very much. But he seems to like them! So he gets those, too.

i like to think my palate is slightly different to that of a dog

they evolved to basically survive on table scraps and other food humans didn't want to eat so i'm not sure our concepts of "peak taste" will be the same

people sometimes have to stop their dogs eating their own vomit

I did, I can say that it tastes mostly like nothing, but my dog loves it because the smell is so strong (I think)

I was going to ask WTF… but they like everything I feed them. (Cats) Hard food by an independent company that is no carb all protein. (Edit, young again pet food, my older cat had diabetes until I started this food, now he doesn’t!) Seafood Reveal cans, all pure fish. And not sure what’s in Friskies Temptations… but they want those like it’s crack.

I've just returned to Lemmy after a while so I'm OOTL. Can anyone give me a gist of what happened with the recent vegan drama on here? Or maybe link to a post I can read?

i worked at an animal hospital for a few years in my 20s (late 90s). I was also broke af punk kid living in a filthy punk rock house, barely able to afford my part of rent. So i'd bring home the pet food sometimes. It wasn't really inventoried, and it's nutrition. Do not recommend though, its a great way to get a bacterial gut infection since pet food regulations are very minimal.

it ranges. some cat food is indistinguishable from canned tuna. the science diet I/D canine prescription tastes exactly like canned corned beef hash. the cheap stuff (kibbles&bits, fancy feast, etc) tastes exactly like you'd expect: bone meal, corn starch, and ash slag. cause thats the filler trash the cheap stuff is made of.

generally though, most kibble just tastes like if you soaked grape nuts cereal in beef broth, and most wet food tastes about the same as canned horse. which is unpleasant.

I tried a piece of kibble when I was a kid, mostly because it bothered my mom and I thought it was funny. It wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever eaten. Most of my dogs have eaten pretty much whatever you offer them, except (of course) my chihuahua. She'd eat buffalo sauce but not a carrot. When she lost all her teeth, she'd eat a flavor of wet food happily for like, a week, and then refuse to touch it ever again, so I don't think it was the food being gross as much as it was her being a picky little shit.

I ate a dog treat that I'm 90% sure was just a bone shaped nilla wafer.

I've eaten cat biscuits. They don't taste offensive, but there's nothing in them for me to enjoy. Even so, they're the one thing all my cats agree is worth eating.

My 13 years older sister gave me a chocolate piece when I was a kid, and asked afterwards if I liked it. I did. She gave me more, and didn't tell me they were dog "chocolates".

Tried one a few years ago - not as good as I remembered, and wouldn't ask for another.

I bought some fancy biscuits for my dogs from a local company. Ingredients are basically oats, cheddar, bacon, rosemary. I could 100% kill this whole bag if my dogs didn’t look so devastated when I ate their special treats.

Dog food and treats, cat food and treats, rabbit food, fish food, I'm sure others; i was curious, they were terrible.

I have tasted the "gravy" in the wet food. Not disgusting, but definitely not interested in trying it again. When I worked at a pet store one of those birthday biscuits came in broken so my manager has written it off. He offered me to try a piece and those were honestly not bad. A less sweet cookie basically.

Oddly enough, besides meat, my dogs favorite food is kibble. Dry kibble. It took me years to train him to wait for his food... Hes much better now but he still swallows everything whole. And he loves it so much my husband uses his normal food as treats while I still try to get him that higher level rewards (I.e. cheese, nicer treats, etc).

Also, he doesn't like wet or "fresh" dog food 🤷‍♀️

I do concur with everyone on this thread though that our dogs taste buds are significantly different than ours. Ive tried a few and it doesn't matter what I like. Dogs are different

I've tasted the dried crickets and mealworms that I feed to my gerbils. Infact, just today I got an intrusive thought about tasting one of the pellets I'm feeding them too. I didn't but maybe I should.

I used to hitchhike, and one day, got a ride with a trucker hauling blackened animal organs to be turned into pet food (they were blackened as a mark to show they were unfit for human consumption at the place where they were mass harvested). It was the worst smell I've ever smelled in my entire life. I remember gagging for a few minutes as the driver laughed and told me what the deal was.

Still not the worst road story I have lol.

But be aware of what your pet's food is made from. Or make your own, if you're worried about it!

There's typically warning against eating pet food on the bags for that very reason.

I got some “human grade” dog treats that are little sliced sausages and they smell delicious. Like actual edible salami. Haven’t tried them yet but I’m tempted to.

My brother ate a Snausage for the low low price of one US dollar. There was a whole negotiation process beforehand (Snausage, milk bone, kennel ration biscuit and dog chow were all on the table). He had regrets. I'll admit that I drove a hard bargain, but he was old enough to know better.

For myself? No. Some of my cats' shredded chicken in "gravy" looks and smells OK. Still no.

The veterinary sales rep I used to work with said, "their taste buds are very different from ours." I'll trust him

I was tricked into eating dog biscuits when I was a little kid. Tasted like ash more than anything else. But dogs like vomit too, so our tastes are not very similar.

I always taste test my pet's food to make sure it's not poisoned.

I've tasted a couple of cookies/treats. Milkbones, stuff from 3 dog bakery and what not. Milkbones have no flavor that I can discern. The boutique dog cookie was fine, I can see how a dog would get down on it.

Wet food tho. Nah. I'm good fam.