These facts about a dog’s sense of taste might surprise you.
Although a dog’s sense of smell is superior to ours, their tasting abilities are probably not as sensitive. A dog has only 1,700 taste buds – far fewer than a human’s 9,000. Dogs can detect some of the same tastes as humans, but they discern those tastes differently.
For example, did you know:
- Dogs can taste sweet, salty, sour, spicy, and umami (earthy and meaty) just like people.
- Dogs don’t taste spicy food the same way we do. It’s thought that they feel the heat of spicy foods but not necessarily the flavor. Spicy foods can also cause gastrointestinal issues for dogs, so they should be avoided.
- Generally, dogs don’t have a preference for salty foods. It is thought that a dog's ancestral diet was high enough in salt that they didn’t need to develop a taste for it.
- Dogs perceive sweetness differently than we do, as they have more sweet receptors than we do. This is thought to have helped them find ripe plants and fruits as part of their ancestral diets.
- Dogs actually have taste buds that are tuned for water! These lie on the tip of his tongue — the part that laps the water up. When a dog eats salty or sugary food, his sensitivity to the taste of water increases. This ability may have evolved as a way of encouraging a dog to drink and keep hydrated while eating meat that has a naturally high salt content.
Dogs don’t generally like sour foods. Taste deterrents such as bitter apple or lemon are designed to prevent dogs from chewing things they should not. These substances are frequently put on furniture, walls, or whatever the dog is chewing in order to stop the behavior and rely on the idea that sour and bitter flavors are unpleasant for dogs. You have to be careful, however, because some dogs actually like the taste of these substances, licking them off quickly in order to get to the other good stuff underneath.
Related reading
References
Horowitz, A. (2010). Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know. Scribner.
