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.