More Things I Think About…Why Do Dogs And Cats Crave Certain Foods?
I have previously written about, Things I Think About All The Time, it focused primarily on some of my thoughts on more mundane subjects; science, religion, extraterrestrial life as well as politics. But, believe it or not, I also think about some really mind-blowing and serious subjects as well, e.g.- Why do dogs and cats really, really, like (or dislike) certain foods, and food groups?
Have you ever thought about this stuff?
I consider myself a pretty keen observer of my surroundings. I have always had dogs and cats in my life as my furry, four-legged minions. I have always faithfully provided for them and took care of all of their wants and needs, so they could lead happy and healthy lives. I would have included, “Productive” as well, but who knows what that would actually mean to the life of a dog or cat. If sleeping for most of the day, is considered productive, then my dogs, and cats, have lead extremely “productive lives” that are beyond belief.
If truth be told, I actually much prefer dogs over cats. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like cats, as I really do, but as far as I am concerned, if I had to choose one over the other, dogs are far more interesting and faithful companions.
I once read a very appropriate comparison regarding the difference between cats and dogs. I have no idea who said it, but it went something like this,
“The main difference between a cat and a dog is, If you have been gone for a year, a cat acts like you’ve been gone for ten minutes, a dog, on the other hand, if you have been gone for 10 minutes, acts like you have been gone for a year”
Besides have you ever noticed that a cat has exactly one facial expression, and that is “whatever! fuck with me, and I will kill you when you’re sleeping”. Just to be on the safe side, I always make sure that the cat has plenty of food, clean water, and her litter box is kept clean, and hopefully she will appreciate this enough to not claw up the furniture, or try to use me as a climbing post when she gets into one of her inexplicable psychotic episodes.
A dog, on the other hand, has a multitude of facial expressions and body language. He is always happy to see me, likes to play, and for whatever reason feels the need to incessantly lick me for no apparent reason. Not to mention we never have to pre-rinse the dishes before placing them into the dishwasher, Dogs do a really good job of that so I don’t have to.
But I digress, my friends, what I really want to talk about is the types of foods that dogs and cats seem to enjoy the most. I am having a tough time trying to understand their culinary taste preferences for different types of food.
Let’s start with cats. Here’s a cat food commercial featuring, Morris the Cat, that perfectly illustrates my first point…
Morris the Cat perfectly illustrates the usual cat facial expression as I just described, but is really excited to be fed, “sliced beef in gravy”. Think about that?
In all seriousness, when was the last time that you saw a typical domestic cat tear assing across a field, and taking down a cow? I know I haven’t, and that would be a pretty horrific sight if one did. The typical domestic house cat weighs approximately 9 pounds. On the other hand, a full-grown cow weighs in at something like 1,200 pounds.
So, I can’t comprehend how a domestic cat’s diet could possibly contain beef. I would think that a domestic cat’s normal diet would include something like; bird, mouse, rat, squirrel, or other small rodents.
Another common cat food contains, salmon, tuna, shrimp, white fish, and other seafood.
These ingredients seem absurd, considering every cat that I have ever owned absolutely hates water, I mean seriously, any cat I have ever had hates water. Trying to give a cat a bath is like taking your life in your hands, as any cat I ever had, would try to claw you to death if you ever even attempted to place it anywhere near water. Besides when was the last time you saw a typical house cat leisurely swimming in a pool, or a river, or the ocean?
Because of this, granted strictly limited observational evidence, I can’t imagine a typical domestic house cat jumping into a body of water, dive down, grab a fish in its mouth, swim back to shore, and feast on said raw fish for dinner.
Now, on the other hand, my dog, Homer, remember Homer?
Homer
Homer, weighs in at barely 20 pounds and is half Rat Terrier, and half Dachshund. Homer is certainly not considered to ba a large breed, scary type dog by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, the cat even ignores him.
Homer, will literally eat anything. When I say anything, I really mean anything and everything. Homer, is a four-legged garbage disposal. he will eat fish, chicken, red meat, all vegetables, fruit, potatoes, or anything else, if you give it to him, he will eat it. Everything, that is except for shrimp or scallops, these two things he just wants to roll on them. I assume that he wants to disguise himself as a shrimp or scallop to attract something else, that he will readily eat. Who knows what he’s thinking. Homer gets this really dreamy, far away, look one his face, and suddenly rolls all over the shrimp or scallop.
But then again he has rolled around on dead animals as well, but that’s another story.
One of Homer’s favourite foods or snacks in the whole world is these smelly things,
Gravy Train Wavy Bacon Strips
Homer also really enjoys cat food. We have to feed the cat on a table so Homer can’t get to it. I have a theory about Homer’s fondness for cat food. I believe that even though he get’s along well enough with the cats, I believe that Homer thinks that if he can’t get rid of the cats, he believes that maybe he can starve them out. But, this is just a working theory at this point, and I need more data to prove it one way or another.
Anyway, back to the Wavy Bacon Strips, Homer considers these to be literally “mana from heaven”. As a matter of fact, the longer we have the bag, the more rancid they smell, the more Homer likes them. As far as Homer is concerned, if this was the only thing I ever fed him, he would be perfectly content with that. That and any cat food he could steal would be all he ever wanted or needed in life.
“Wavy fake bacon flavoured Dog Treats” as well as real bacon, is something that Homer, goe’s crazy for, I mean he loses his mind every time he gets a chance to have some. Cats have catnip, Homer has Wavy bacon Strips as his drug of choice. But the real question is why?
How is it that a twenty-pound dog, like Homer, would be so crazy about pork? Seriously, he is not even remotely capable of taking down a pig, cow, or any other large animal. He is certainly capable of taking down a rat, bird, lizard, or especially squirrels. Squirrels don’t have a chance around Homer. Believe me, Homer has tried to catch squirrels literally hundreds of times, its only a matter of time before a Squirrel with Homer hot on his tail, ziggs when it should have zagged, and that will be it for Mr. Squirrel. Opossums are another story altogether…
We had a house where there were a flight fairly steep stairs leading down from the main floor, to the back yard. Homer, used to shoot down the stairs like a rocket to chase the squirrels. One day there was an Opossum at the bottom of the stairs, Homer shot down the stairs like a rocket as usual. Except, this time it was different, You see opossums don’t run away like squirrels do.
Opossum
Homer was barking his fool, head off and running full speed down the stairs, with the assistance of gravity he was really moving. The Opossum turned towards Homer, stood its ground, and started hissing at him.
Homer, immediately did a three sixty at the bottom of the stairs and ran back up into the house as fast as his little legs could carry him. Homer, then proceeded to peek around the door and bark at the Opossum.
I suppose that Homer was pretending that he was a really threatening, big shot, fearless predator. Obviously, to the Opossum, Homer was just a scared, whiny, little dork. The Opossum lost interest after a few minutes and slowly wandered off.
Homer being tough!
My point is if Homer was scared to death of an 8 or 9-pound Opossum, how is Homer going to take down a several hundred pound pig, or a 1,200-pound cow? Seriously, How could these large animals possibly be a normal part of Homer’s normal diet? And what is the rolling on the shrimp and scallops all about anyway?
I could see why Homer like’s fish. You see, Homer can swim like an otter.
Homer Swimming
Homer loves to swim. Victoria and I used to have a house with a pool. Once and a while, we would be getting ready to go out for dinner or whatever, and the last thing I would do was to let Homer outside to do his business. To get into the back yard you had to go through the lanai.
Periodically, Homer realising we were leaving would decide that the best way for him to delay our departure would be to bolt for the pool and jump in. Homer would swim around in circles in the middle of the pool and would not come out for any reason no matter what I said or did.
Because of Homer’s outstanding swimming abilities, I find it entirely possible that he could catch fish if he had to. As long as it wasn’t shrimp or scallops he would probably eat them. The only thing I can’t figure out is how he would cook them, as Homer doesn’t really care for raw fish.
Another mystery is how come Homer will swim in a pool any chance he gets, but he will not under any circumstances go outside to pee when it’s raining?
I will leave you with one final thought. I once took Homer to the vet for his usual shots and the vet casually mentioned that dogs and cats are not really meant to eat meat and dry food is just fine. Really!
I seem to remember from basic biology that dogs and cats have a mouth full of fangs and incisors. The only kinds of animals that have teeth like that are predators, essentially meat eaters.
Here is a fun and informative experiment you can do yourself at home, with either dogs or cats.
You will need 5 small bowls. fill one bowl with canned dog or cat food (or if you prefer you can substitute canned food for; cooked chicken, fish, beef, or lamb), one bowl of dry cat or dog food, one bowl filled with cereal and grain, one bowl with vegetables, and the last bowl filled with fruits.
Line up all 5 bowls on the floor and call your dog or cat, and carefully observe which bowl(s) of food they eat first, and which foods they were the most enthusiastic about eating. Carefully note which foods they finished completely, and which foods they ignored or barely touched.
Send me your experimental results and I will publish them in a future update.
As Always,
I Am…….
Thomas Dyson
This article is an original work of satire loosely based on actual events by; Thomas Dyson. If you enjoyed this article please consider becoming a follower, it’s absolutely free and we do not sell or use your email address for anything except to notify you when new content is posted. We would really appreciate it if you would share this with your friends, family or complete strangers on your social media accounts or even shout it from the rooftop.
Some Of The Things I Think About All The Time…..
By Tom Dye
On April 15, 2017
In Humanity, News Commentary, Opinion, Satire, Tales of the Absurd
Some Of The Things I Think About All The Time…..
I want to make one thing perfectly clear right off the bat, I am an enigma, and believe it or not, a vast amount of people consider me to be a world-renowned scholar of esoteric knowledge, I contemplate things that many would not or could not dare to think about.
Being a scholar of esoteric knowledge I have lived my entire life based on the profound wisdom of John Houseman, who once said, ” A wise man believes only in lies, trusts only the absurd and learns to expect the unexpected”
So, because of all this, I find myself thinking about a lot of things that most people probably haven’t even considered thinking about before. I am going to share a few of these thoughts with you to see what you think. Feel free to comment on any one of (or all) these profound revelations.
Please remember all these opinions are mine, and mine alone, and are not meant to disrespect anyone’s personal beliefs or philosophy in life. If you are offended, by my opinions and my beliefs then you should stop reading this article right now.
Life & Death
The Afterlife
I hear religious people all the time talking about the glorious afterlife they’re going to have after death. Really? How do you know that? What if you’re wrong? Just saying. I know one thing for certain, believe me, I have thought about this a lot. “Life is a sure thing, and death is definitely to uncertain for my liking”. I equate this to someone who is relying on winning the lottery as their retirement plan., the odds are totally against you. You may want to have a plan B, just in case Plan A, doesn’t work out
I don’t know about you, but not one person that I have ever known, or even ever heard of that had died, has ever come back, appeared to me, came to me in a dream, or anything else for that matter, and extolled the virtues of being dead, and how awesome the afterlife is, and encouraged me to try it for myself.
Think about that for a moment. Although, I have had living people tell me that I should just die, or that I should just kill myself. Obviously, I didn’t listen to them and don’t plan to, not now and not ever.
I know exactly what some of you are thinking right about now. “You have to have faith and you have to believe with all your heart”. OK, I get that. I have heard this literally uncountable times before.
Here is something to consider, I had a good really good friend Brad, (who by the way has also passed away, and has also never tried to contact me from beyond the grave either). Anyway, Brad believed with his entire being that aliens would never allow a nuclear war to occur between nations on Earth and they would immediately intervene if one was imminent. He had absolute unshakable faith in this and believed it with all his heart.
I know this first hand, as Brad and me, discussed this topic on numerous occasions. Brad never wavered in his belief, or for that matter ever produced any kind of proof, or any kind of evidence that this was actually the case, not an alien manifesto, or any proof at all. I personally thought that this was not something that I would want to rely on in the brink of a nuclear war.
I had serious concerns, what if the unspecified aliens were on vacation, stuck in trans-galactic traffic, or were asleep when a nuclear war on earth started. I mentioned my concerns to Brad, and he was still supremely confident and absolutely believed that the aliens would intervene and that I was foolish to be concerned at all.
So who’s right? and who’s wrong? That’s the part I am still contemplating.
Did you know that 80% of Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump? I would be really interested in knowing how anyone could possibly unite, or find common ground between these two opposing forces. I do know that I can’t seem to wrap my head around this one, no matter how much I think about it.
According to evangelical Christianity, If an atheist lived a good life, helped the poor and disadvantaged, did not lie, cheat, steal, or kill, essentially lived a good upstanding life by any measure but somehow failed to accept Jesus Christ before his/her death, they would be condemned to hell.
However, if Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, or Ted Bundy, did accept Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness before their deaths, they would all go to heaven. I am sorry but this just sounds absurd.
Scientologists
Scientology was invented by L. Ron Hubbard, a somewhat well-known “Science Fiction author”.
According to dummies.com “Scientologists believe that people are immortal alien beings (called thetans) who have forgotten their true nature and are trapped on earth in a human body. Scientologists believe that each thetan has lived numerous past lives, both on earth in our physical bodies, and on other planets. Scientologists also believe that by undergoing a series of classes and teachings (called auditing by the church), people can free themselves of their human form and reclaim their true selves.
Seriously? I think I’ve read the book and it ends badly for your bank account.
Here’s what I believe, as the great philosopher Forrest Gump once said, “Stupid is what stupid does” and “That’s all I have to say about that”.
Science
Gravity
People generally agree that the discovery of “Gravity” is one of the most fundamentally important discoveries of all time. First, Issac Newton, but he was wrong, and then Albert Einstein finally described the fundamental concept of “Gravity” as we know it today.
I want to put forth the idea that this was actually not as big a deal as people make it out to be. You see, gravity is always there, even on holidays, overnight, and the weekends. Someone would have discovered gravity sooner or later anyway. Seriously this seems pretty obvious to me.
Climate Change
99.9% of scientists and scientific bodies around the world tell us that climate change is real and is being caused by mankind because of our industrial activities. I accept their findings. After all, I am not a climate scientist.
The part of climate change that I to contemplate is the thinking of those who deny it’s real. Virtually all climate change deniers start their denial with, “I am not a scientist, but…..”
That’s right you are not a scientist Bozo, so who are you to refute them with your own bullshit. Donald Trump says that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. What????
Sarah Palin is another climate change denier, so that should tell you everything you need to know.
Personally, I’m with the scientists on this one.
Discovering America
When I went to school they taught us that Christopher Columbus discovered America. No, he did not! The Americas were always there. Columbus was actually sailing for the West Indies, but being the really piss poor sailor that he was, he made a wrong turn and ran right smack into America. So, Christopher “Wrong Way”Columbus made a wrong turn, and somehow “discovered” something that was there all along. I mean seriously, it’s not like you could miss it or anything. Columbus was way, way, overrated. Not to mention the fact that he was an asshole, and a slaver.
Hell, the way I see it, “Gilligans Island” had a more believable plotline than Christopher Columbus discovering America.
Aliens (Extraterrestrial Life)
I have been thinking about this for a very long time now. When I talk about aliens I am referring to the kind from another planet, not to be confused with undocumented people from one country living in another country without permission.
We seem to have two kinds of supposed alien visitations. The first type is where alien beings visit some poor uneducated fool named Billy Bob in the middle of nowhere, abduct him against his will give him some sort of inexplicable anal probe, release him and go on their merry way.
This makes no sense on several levels. How many anal probes would alien beings require from human beings? and what would be the ultimate purpose?
I would think that if alien beings wanted to reveal themselves to Earth they most likely would not appear to Billy Bob in the middle of nowhere, they would be a lot more effective landing at Central Park in NYC, at noon on a Saturday, where thousands of people would see them. Not to mention the fact that this would be a lot better place to gather their anal probe data as they could collect hundreds at once. I would be willing to bet that they could find several people who would even volunteer for anal probing.
The other type of alien sighting consists of either coloured lights in the night sky or supposed video of some sort of alien craft just buzzing the Earth. I often wonder if aliens just buzz the planet just to fuck with us for fun?
According to the theory of Occam’s razor, with two facts being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
Unidentified lights in the sky, or (usually fuzzy images) of unusually shaped craft flying over someplace seems like a stretch from other more simple explanations.
I do believe that considering that there are literally billions of planets and galaxies out there that there is certainly a great probability that there are other forms of life somewhere in the universe. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly do not have any proof to support this belief, this is just a very strong statistical probability.
Here’s something to contemplate. I am going to science the shit out of this one, so hang on. The closest star (another sun) from Earth is 4.24 light years away. It is a binary star system and Faint Proxima Centauri is the closest one.
A light-year is a distance that light travels in one year. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – E = mc2 this equates to 186,000 miles per second. To put this into perspective that means that if you could travel the speed of light, it would mean that you could travel from Earth to the Moon in 1.3 seconds. Also, according to the Einstein’s relativity, one cannot travel at, or faster than the speed of light.
So, by the laws of physics, as we understand it, travelling at .99% the speed of light, it would take an alien race sometime more than 4.24 years each way just to reach Earth. Of course, because of time dilation, they would only experience a trip of only about 14 days, while 4.24 years would have passed on Faint Proxima Centauri.
So, ignoring pesky things like having to slow down, orbital mechanics, and everything else, If aliens left Faint Proxima Centauri at,99% the speed of light somehow slingshot around the Earth and go right back home. These alien astronauts would have aged only about 24 days while everyone else on their planet would have aged 8.48 years. BAM! Mic drop!
What that means is either extraterrestrial aliens have either discovered other laws of physics and technologies that we don’t have any understanding or comprehension of, which is not beyond the realm of possibility, or it could be that we are just separated by too vast distances to ever meet or have any meaningful communication.
Let’s just imagine for a moment that an alien culture only 4.24 light years away sent us a modulated communication by a powerful laser. Assuming that we could even understand the message, and answer it right away, the message would take 4,24 years to get here and another 4.24 more years before they got our response. Just saying hello to each other would take 8.48 years. A generation would have lived and died before any sort of meaningful communication would have occurred.
I am going to be thinking about this one for quite a long time.
Our own solar system is vast. For all the science geeks out there like me here is a fascinating video that illustrates, in real-time, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and travelling across a portion of our solar system, from a human perspective.
Fake News and Alternative Facts
This is one area where I attempt to contemplate some sort of meaning but somehow I always fail miserably. Although that doesn’t stop me from trying.
Did you know that pollsters recently did a survey where they talked to lots of people and presented them with a conspiracy theory without any basis in fact or offering any proof and a full 33% of the people believed them without question?
What the fuck is wrong with these people? Whatever happened to critical thinking? What I find interesting is how the 33% of the people who obviously believes anything, without proof or basis, in fact, or reality, is about the same percentage of people who voted for Donald Trump.
Is this a coincidence? Who knows. Although I believe that there is a strong probability that this is actually the case that 33% of the people are actually morons who will believe anything, without proof, or facts, no matter how absurd it might be.
I actually had a friend tell me recently that Breitbart news was going to be the “new” New York Times. Are you fucking kidding me? The New York Times is a Pulitzer prize winning news source. Breitbart news, not so much.
Donald trump recently tweeted that NY Times, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and CNN News are enemies of the American People. This is incredibly dangerous and is certainly just Trump’s propaganda. Just because mainstream news organisations report his own words or report actual news that is critical of him or his policies does not make them enemies of the American people it just makes them news organisations doing their jobs as journalists.
Conversely, if the mainstream news organisations mentioned above are enemies of the American people, then that would infer that biased or outright fake news sites e.g.- FOX News, Breitbart, Infowars, or the Drudge Report are not. Sadly, people actually buy into these alternative facts.
The main issue that I try to contemplate is why? Another important question is why do people vote against their own interests?
I listen to NPR three hours per day, read the Huffington Post, CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Bloomberg, NY Times, Washington Post,and Politico every day to try to get a good understanding of events and to try see if there is a consensus regarding the day’s news events. Notice that the common thread between all of these news sites is that they are all award-winning mainstream news sources.
I am still stunned when I wear my NPR tee-shirt that Trump supporters will point to it and say that NPR is a liberal news organisation. Seriously??? NPR is about as fair and balanced as you can get and they always present both sides in every news story they produce, and furthermore, NPR doe’s not provide any sort of commentary one way or the other, they present the facts from both sides and leave it up to you to decide for yourself where you stand on the issues at hand. Isn’t this what real journalism is all about?
Since when did NPR suddenly become the enemy, or somehow become a liberal news source? They haven’t, and I can’t imagine that they ever will be.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Democracy is founded upon a well-educated population” He was right then, and he is, even more, right today. The internet and fake news sources have enabled people to validate their own beliefs regardless if they are true or not.
I get it, It is really hard for some people to change their belief systems when confronted with indisputable facts to the contrary. However, as human beings, this is how life is. The real truth of reality is not what you want it, or believe it to be. Reality is what it is, and will find a way to reassert itself with a vengeance the longer it is denied. There is only one truth no matter what you may personally believe.
One thing that I am absolutely certain of, there are no “alternative facts” only facts. There is only one truth, it is only true, or not true. The sooner we all realise this the better off we will all be.
The sooner you realise this fundamental truth about reality, the sooner you will learn to become a thinking human being.
As for the rest of this stuff, I will keep contemplating it so you don’t have to.
Some of my other important contemplations that I am still working on include, why is it that a USB connector is designed to only go in one way, but you have to flip it around three times before it finally goes in? and why is it that they keep looking for Big Foot, but never seem to find one, either living or dead?
As Always,
I Am…..
Thomas Dyson
This article is an original work of satire and is based on actual news events. Become a follower today to be one of the first to be notified when new articles are posted. Share this article with all your friends on social media or just shout it from the rooftops.
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