What Flavors Can Dogs Actually Taste in Their Food?

Do you ever look at your pup while they're hoovering up their food, seemingly without letting it even touch the inside of their mouth, and wonder? Do dogs taste things the way we do? Do they taste differently, or not taste at all?

I had a customer send in their question about this recently.

"We're not really sure what flavors our dogs taste in their food, but we usually feed them boiled chicken breast with squash or other vegetables, and sometimes a commercial wet food. As for treats, they seem to enjoy banana-flavored snacks, and freeze-dried treats."

This customer wasn't really asking me about what their dogs can taste, but it got me thinking.

It's one of those questions that might strike you in a moment of fancy, but how would you even know? Sure, dogs love their food and their treats, and they have to be able to tell some differences here and there. We've all had times when we need to "spice up" a meal, make something more attractive to a sick pooch or add some variety to their meals. And they definitely beg for foods they recognize.

But how much of that is scent versus taste? We know dogs have incredible senses of smell, but taste isn't something we usually talk about.

Fortunately, we don't have to just think about it; science has an answer. That answer is also something worth knowing, since it helps you aim your dog's diet towards something that is both healthy and that they find delicious.

Do Dogs Taste Anything at All?

Do dogs have taste buds? It might sound like an obvious question, but you never know how things work out there in the animal kingdom. There are all kinds of animals that experience the world in ways very different from our own.

So, do dogs have taste buds, or do they rely entirely on smell?

The answer is: yes, they have taste buds. That said, even though their sense of smell is way better than our own, their sense of taste is not. Humans have around 9,000 taste buds, but dogs only have about 1,700. Given that many dogs have tongues a whole lot larger than our own, you can tell that they aren't going to have as sensitive a palette as we do.

What Do Dogs Taste?

You may know about the five major types of flavors, which were actually four a number of years ago before the fifth was added. Sweet flavors, salty flavors, sour flavors, bitter flavors, and umami flavors. Umami, of course, is the fifth flavor type.

Reality is more complex than these simple categories, and the more we learn about the way our bodies work, the more we come up with other kinds of flavors. Scientists have identified other potential primary flavors, including:

• Fat, since the tongue can respond directly to the presence of fatty acids as something more than just a greasy texture.

• Ammonium Chloride, which you don't really encounter all that often, but which is the key sour-salt flavor in salmiakki (salty licorice).

• Kokumi, another Japanese flavor profile meaning "rich mouthfulness", which is kind of a flavor enhancer via calcium channels.

So, it's not really as simple as just five flavors that we either taste or we don't. And, just like how some animals can hear things we can't, and others can see things we can't, some animals can taste things we can't.

That's people; what about dogs?

On one hand, dogs can taste the same main flavors we can, though the balance might be different. It's hard to test comparatively how strongly they taste their flavors, after all.

So, we know dogs can taste sweet (like fruit), salty (like meats), bitter (like those pills they somehow find and spit out every time), and sour (which we know they'll ditch if they don't like it.) They also probably taste umami.

Dogs do, however, have two flavors that we don't… sort of.

One is a meat/fat flavor profile. It's unique to dogs, but kind of works as a combination of flavors we do taste, the meaty/umami/salty/fatty flavor mélange you get from meat. We know dogs are more finely-tuned towards this flavor, likely because they are descended from predatory carnivores.

It's very likely that dogs taste a meat flavor, but not distinct meat flavors for each meat you could give them. Obviously, chicken and beef are pretty different, but beef and pork (especially in dog foods) lose a lot of distinctness.

The other unique flavor for dogs is actually water. We people tend to think of water as mostly flavorless, and recognize that the flavors we find in water are from things in the water, like minerals or ions. Dogs, though, have a distinct "water" flavor that is unique.

There's also some evidence that this sense for the flavor of water grows more enticing and stronger when a dog is thirsty, like after exercise or a meal. This encourages them to seek out that flavor, so they drink and stay hydrated.

Dog's Senses of Scent and Taste, Intertwined

As you probably know, scent and taste are mixed. If you eat a whole meal with your nose plugged, it won't taste as good.

The same is true for dogs, but even more so. I had a friend talk to me about how their dog, sick with a cold, refused to really touch their food until she used a meal topper that was very… let's say pungent. It took a very strong scent to make it through the stuffy nose, which she had a love/hate relationship with. She hated the smell because it saturated the house and made her queasy. She loved it because it helped her poor fur baby actually eat, which helped them recover.

As it turns out, dogs have a special organ along their palate that essentially processes scent as taste. This is a big part of how they have such a powerful sense of smell!

What Do Dogs Not Taste?

So, are there any flavors dogs don't taste, or don't really taste?

Kind of, yeah. As mentioned, they taste meat in a unique way, but they don't distinguish a lot between different meats. Similarly, sweet and tart things like fruits all kind of taste the same to them, which is why they'll enjoy most fruits more or less equally.

Another interesting lack, here, is salt. We people are pretty keenly tuned in to salt, because we need a certain amount of sodium in our diets to remain healthy, and a lot of the things we eat as hunter-gatherers aren't high in salt, so we need to seek it out.

Dogs, meanwhile, got plenty of sodium from their primarily meat diets, so they didn't need to be as tuned into sodium to seek it out.

The opposite is true with sweet, by the way. Dogs love sweet food because they don't get a lot of sugar and, more importantly, a lot of the vitamins and minerals present in fruits in their meat-focused diets. That adaptation leads them to enjoy fruits when they can, which gets them those nutrients.

What Tastes Bad to Dogs?

This is another surprisingly interesting question. We know a dog's sense of taste isn't focused the same way ours is. After all, they'll happily eat up poo from the ground, something no human would consider.

There are basically four things dogs will tend to avoid.

The first is overly-salty foods. Too much salt can just be unpleasant, both as a flavor and as an experience when it hits the tongue, and since dogs don't need to seek out salt, they don't particularly enjoy salty foods.

Second is sour. Sour is largely unpleasant to dogs, since it's not something they'll naturally encounter and enjoy. Think about sources of sour foods in the wild. Fruits dogs aren't likely to encounter, and under-ripe fruits that can even be toxic. That's about it! It makes sense that they wouldn't care for it.

Third is bitter. Nothing bitter in nature is inherently good for you, really. Bitter things tend to be either bad for you, toxic, or just unpleasant. Dogs don't particularly enjoy it. This is also why they pick out and avoid bitter medicines, unfortunately.

Fourth, finally, is spicy. Capsaicin is, after all, a chemical deterrent for animals. We people are rather unique in our enjoyment of both the spice and the flavor that rides underneath it. Dogs? They'll just feel the pain, and aren't going to appreciate it in the slightest.

Do Dogs Have Flavor Preferences?

Absolutely. Some dogs will experience flavors differently, and will like (or dislike) certain things more or less than others. Some dogs will prefer certain meats over others, some prefer sweeter things and some like less sweet things and so on.

This can also change over time as your dog gets older. Preferences can change, they can decide to avoid certain foods if they have a bad experience with them, and they can get bored of the same thing over and over.

There's also some interesting studies out there, though I don't know how authoritative they are. They say things like:

• The foods a dog eats when they're a puppy will shape their preferences throughout life, possibly out of some nostalgic familiarity with their childhood foods.

• The foods a dog's mother ate could affect the preferences of their puppies.

What do you think? Did your dog get their flavor preferences from their mother?

More Questions About a Dog's Sense of Taste

In case you were curious (I know I was!), here are some other fun facts and questions about a dog's sense of taste that I looked into while researching this article.

When do puppies develop their sense of taste?

Puppies actually develop their sense of taste early compared to other senses, even before being able to see or hear. They start to taste things (like their mother's milk) after just a couple of weeks.

Conversely, the sense of taste is one of the first senses to go with age. Older dogs can turn into picky eaters as their taste (and smell) declines, and their food just doesn't come across as attractive as it used to be.

Are dog foods designed with flavor in mind?

Yes and no. They kind of are, since they'll be flavored with something most dogs love, like chicken, other meat flavors, or something like peanut butter or other sweet flavors.

But, part of this is just because it's always been done that way, or because the bulk "filler" or base ingredients like chicken or squash are cheap. It's not necessarily intentionally designed that way, though it really depends on the brand as much as anything.

What else affects a dog's sense of taste?

Interestingly, something you might not think of, but will realize when you hear it, is that temperature matters.

Cold foods don't taste as strongly because they numb your tongue; warmer foods are more flavorful in general. Warmer foods also give off more scent, which works doubly strongly for dogs with their scent-taste organ. This is why another way you can get a sick dog to eat is to heat up their food.

Can you test your dog's preferences?

Sure, it's pretty easy. Get a couple of different foods in different bowls and see which they go for first. Try different foods, even mixed, and see if they avoid one.

This isn't all the most scientific study, though. We all know a lot of dogs are just going to devour anything you give them. Still, it can give you some ideas!

Now, it's your turn. Tell me your stories! What kinds of preferences or lack thereof has your dog had? I've met dogs that will eat literally everything they can, and I've met some of the pickiest eaters you can imagine. I'm curious how frequently you all have had one or the other. And, of course, if you have other questions about our precious fur babies, you can ask me those too! I love digging into this kind of stuff; it's fun to write about, so let me know what you're interested in.