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.

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

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.

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’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 tried peanut butter biscuits for dogs once. Needless to say, dogs are getting ripped off. Tastes nothing like peanut butter.

As a kid, think toddler, my parents said I used to eat the dry dog food with the dog. Not like a lot, but a bite sometimes. They said the dog would give me weird looks as I’d take a bite.

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 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 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 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 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 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’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.