What are dogs gonna do, complain in human language that they don’t taste like pumpkin or cookies and cream?
There’s no scenario where a reasonable and normal human being can ever prove or disprove the advertised flavor of dog treats. And if you do? Congratulations you fucking weirdo, yeah maybe they lied but YOU put a dog treat in your mouth. You lose by default, bro
All it needs is themed packaging, a vague colorful tint, and boom it’s now whatever flavor you say it is. If anyone objects, “ah, nope. They just taste bad to you because you’re not a dog”
It’s all such silly goosery
Except when the dog spits it out and won’t eat it
If that happens, then that just means you’re that bad at making something taste good. You can’t make something taste better than roadkill squirrel?
I once tried a peanut butter dog treat after checking the label for anything weird. It just tasted like a stale, sugarless peanut butter cookie. Rather uneventful tbh
You don’t eat a tester piece first?
Why would I do that when I am not a dog
I don’t even eat baby food
You’re missing out
Get a veterinarian friend in your life, they have great stories.
In this story time, it’s about pet food companies and veterinarian students. See, if a veterinarian recommends a certain food, is any reasonable owner taking their pet to said veterinarian going to not at least try that food? So pet food companies will give enormous discounts to veterinarian students. They want to hook them on it. They’ll bring in cartloads of their brand and nearly give it away to the students. My friend had a small side hustle reselling the stuff. His girlfriend was feeding her cat something like $300 worth of the super premium food a month… for the low price of $30. His mother was getting 80lbs of some premium brand dog food every month. It was nuts.
They also, in these little giveaways and ‘seminars’ put on, answer all the questions the vets might ever be asked by clients later on… which is why this is relevant to this post. See, they’ll freely admit that every food is more or less taste-tested by humans first. So when they say ‘bacon’ or ‘pumpkin spice’ or such, it’s really because the human that tasted it said so (and also because they already knew what it was going to taste like, the folks making the product aren’t exactly stupid in the first place).
Also also… how does anyone not know what things taste like before putting them in your mouth? I can think of nearly nothing that doesn’t smell so close to how it tastes that it makes no difference. So just go sniff the treat and you can tell.
As a kid I tried eating a begin strip because it smelled exactly like bacon. It did not taste like bacon.
I can think of nearly nothing that doesn’t smell so close to how it tastes that it makes no difference
Vanilla extract would like to have a word with you
Pretty sure it is the same. I just went and tested. What makes it seem otherwise is how concentrated it is. You’re only getting a teenie weenie portion of it into your nose, it’s diluted in any recipe (and the alcohol [like 95% by volume in the container] burns off while cooking), but if you taste it you’re getting it super duper heavy on your tongue, alcohol and vanilla.
And durian
I can think of nearly nothing that doesn’t smell so close to how it tastes that it makes no difference
Soap, cheese, coffee, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, garlic, chestnuts, hibiscus, cinnamon, dragonfruit, coconut
Coffee I’ll give you, though that one is definitely weird to me. It DOES taste and smell the same, but at the same time I love the smell and hate the taste.
Soap, cheese, vanilla, cocoa powder, hibiscus are nearly 1-to-1 matches for me, smell/taste wise. Cinnamon is exactly the same.
Dragonfruit… I can’t recall it very well. I’ve had it once since I turned 18, and can only remember that it’s like eating a kiwi with no taste. Not a thing in memory about the smell. Same thing for chestnuts.
Coconut is another weird one for me. It does smell/taste the same, but the texture is so important that it overrides any concerns of the smell/taste.
Coffee doesnt smell bitter, i think thats what is throwing you off when you taste and its not expected.
Could be. I’m one of the rare water drinkers, maybe tea every now and then, and if the god-below-the-horrors demands I drink coffee, I have it sugared and flavored every way from sunday.
Sounds like someone has never had a dog.
Close enough - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGCoOJSj7jk
Oh God why did I watch the whole thing
And people ask why I don’t watch YouTube all the time
Does not align with my experience. Some dogs I’ve had expressed strong food preferences and would absolutely refuse certain foods to the point of near starvation. Others would eat anything and everything.
I could be wrong, but I believe (because of depressions) dog food needs to be human edible.
I personally feel bad when I feed my dogs shitty treats. So yeah, I taste them. Turns out the chicken jerky is actually pretty good. Like I would probably buy some marketed for humans. Everything else is shit. My dogs generally have a similar reaction (expressed by their eagerness to eat what I have).
Aside from that, dogs generally prefer the stinkiest treats you can find.
I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be edible, I mean if you’re dirt poor and can’t afford food, then it’s definitely better to have something that both you and your dog can eat
But like, dogs don’t have high standards at all, for what they’ll eat. I’ve seen my dog try to go for, fucking like dead birds or rotting veggies. I really don’t think they care if their biscuit tastes like cheesecake or not
Have you never eaten dog treats?
I eat human treats, because I know what species I damn am
My brother and I used to eat milk bones. I guess you’re to fancy for that life.
Ok Shaggy
Isn’t the marketing directed to the dog owners (humans) to disclose what animal produce their product (I.e., “chicken flavored”) contains, more than advertising a distinctive taste as usually the case with human targeted edibles?
Nah I’m talking about flavors that dog treats don’t normally have, like “pumpkin spice” or “eggnog”
Kinda shit you’d expect on something that humans eat. Makes you kinda wonder how dog owners know that their dogs even like those flavors, or that they even taste it in the same way that we do. And I’m not saying that they don’t either, but like why go out of your way to get it? Why assume, you know?? It’s just crazy
Redbarn makes French toast flavored bully slices my dogs both love. My shepherd prefers the vanilla. Those may be more in line with what you’re thinking?
Oh, I see! I’ve never seen pet food marketed in that way before. I guess the strategy is to play on how humans tend to apply humanistic traits to animals, but It’s very strange and weird nonetheless.
That is marketing targeted at particularly stupid humans. Now tell them it is reversible and go enjoy the occasional bit of dried lung themselves.
Honestly, dog treats and dog food should also taste good to humans if they actually were just what they say they are. Bland, perhaps, but not disgusting.
What tastes good to dogs can taste nasty to us for perfectly valid reasons. I don’t think anyone’s rushing to try an apple-beef-cucumber-peanut butter (or whatever the fuck they mix into a) biscuit that explicitly isn’t made for humans
I dunno. I’m pretty sure there is a reason they prefer to eat the food I make for myself (or even when I home cook their meal) instead of the pre-made dog food I bought for them.
Just because dogs want to eat human food doesn’t mean that they should. My dog will rush or beg for any human food, even foods that are bad for her and have too much oil or sodium
I tried dog ice cream once because how bad could ice cream be?
bad.
My husband will regularlly taste the sog treats. I think it’s gross but he says most of them are fine but need salt. He doesn’t taste the kibble or wet food though. Nor the lamb lung, nor the dental chews. I guess chicken jerky and salmon skin shouldn’t really be a problem anyway?
