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.
Teaching dogs to ring doorbells
By Tom Dye
On January 8, 2017
In Dogs, News Commentary, Satire
Teaching dogs to ring doorbells.
I first read about this madness in 2012, and the scientists are still at it. I am only going to say this one last time, so listen up. Whoever you white coats are, STOP THIS MADNESS RIGHT NOW! before it’s too late.
No possible good can come of this. If this were the old days an angry mob of peasants would show up at your castle, armed with torches and pitchforks, tie you up, and subject you to the ultimate punishment. One of their favorite punishments was, to come prepared with 26 pounds of bacon, fry up the 26 pounds of bacon, all the while making a huge mess in your kitchen, and proceed to wrap your entire body in bacon, and drag you’re bacon wrapped body outside the drawbridge. Then, they would wait, they wouldn’t have to wait long.
Trust me, this was not pretty, as every dog owner knows exactly what happens when a dog smells bacon. That’s right, they go into a “bacon frenzy”. Now, just imagine 26 pounds of bacon. My God, the horror of it all. Dogs would come from miles around, far and wide, big and small. This bacon feeding frenzy generally put to an end, once and for all, to any possibility that forbidden knowledge spread any further. Dogs can never, ever, find out how to ring doorbells. This is just wrong, on so many levels, so consider yourself warned.
OK, since these are modern, civilized times, we will rely on logic and reason to make you see the error of your ways. I believe that you just don’t quite understand why, this is such a serious mistake. Let me explain this simply, with some real life examples. The main flaw in your thinking is basically this, DOGS HATE DOORBELLS!!!
I can’t put it in any more simply then that. There are two things in a dog’s life, that dogs despise more then anything on the planet. Doorbells, and Squirrels. There are other things as well, but these are the big two. We have a dog, Homer. So I have direct first hand knowledge, as to why you need to stop this right now.
Please pay attention, as it’s still not too late. We can still fix this.
They say that a picture speaks a thousand words, well then let me present, Exhibit A.
Now, as you can see in Exhibit-A, our dog Homer. He is a fairly small 20 pound dog. He is part Rat Terrier and part Wiener dog. Don’t let his size fool you, in this picture he is vigilantly watching for Squirrels, and waiting for anyone stupid enough to walk up the front steps, and God forbid, ring the doorbell. God help us all if squirrels ever learned to ring doorbells.
The moment Homer hears the doorbell, whether he was watching, and waiting for it or not, Homer immediately goes into attack mode. It doesn’t matter if he is in the back yard, upstairs or wherever, he can hear it. Upon hearing the doorbell, Homer will shoot down stairs like a rocket, sliding into furniture like a pinball, (we have hard wood floors, so this is actually kind of funny to watch), and arrive at the front door, all before the unsuspecting person at the door has time to move their finger from the button. Homer’s barking will not cease for several minutes, no matter what you say, or do. All this because the dog is absolutely convinced that if you ring the doorbell, you obviously don’t belong here, and are certainly not welcome. As I said before, DOGS HATE DOORBELLS!!!
Another interesting fact is, if someone just knocks on the door, without ringing the doorbell, it does not provoke this type of extreme response.
I have a theory as to why all dogs instinctively hate doorbells. I believe that this extreme hatred of doorbells that all dogs seem to possess, can be traced back to Ivan Pavlov, the famous Russian scientist. In 1901 Pavlov did a series of conditioned reflex (brain washing) experiments with dogs, where he conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. It seems logical that all modern dogs are decedents of these original test subjects.
Furthermore, dogs have somehow developed some sort of ancestral subconscious collective memory of these experiments that is hard wired into their DNA. Over the years, and thousands of generations, this collective memory has evolved from associating the sound of a bell and salivating, to associating the sound of a bell, to extreme danger. So, you see there is absolutely nothing you can do, or say, to change this behavior.
I have even done my own extensive research, to determine if different types of doorbells, may induce a different reaction in our dog, Homer. My theory is simple, maybe there are different types of doorbell sounds, or melodies that may mitigate, or minimize, Homer’s extreme response to the doorbell.
For my experiments, I used one of those wireless programmable electronic doorbells. The kind that you can program to make 12 different types of sounds, everything from the standard “ding-dong, to a variety of different chimes, and melodies. My theory was that there may be a certain type of sound, that Homer, or any other dog for that matter, may not recognize as a doorbell at all.
For my controlled experiment, over a period of twelve days I reprogrammed the wireless electronic doorbell everyday. I even moved the doorbell to different parts of the house, so Homer would not be able to associate a particular sound coming from the same location. This experiment was a complete failure. Homer was always able to determine that no mater what type of sound or melodies, I programmed into the doorbell, or wherever the sound was originating from within the house, he always knew it was the doorbell and he always exhibited the exact same extreme reaction. Also, it is interesting to note, that if Homer hears a doorbell on a TV show, or movie, or any other type of bell sound at all, he never reacts to it. Somehow, he is instinctively able to tell the difference.
So my friends, as you can plainly see teaching dogs to ring doorbells is an extremely dumb thing to do. You see, it doesn’t matter if a person rings the doorbell, or the dog does it itself, the dogs instinctive reaction is going to be the exactly same. The dog will immediately go into attack mode, and be absolutely certain that someone is at the door, a person who doe’s not belong there, and is not welcome. So what possible gain would you have teaching a dog to ring the doorbell. Like I said previously whoever is doing this, STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!! before you destroy the delicate balance of power between mankind, and our canine companions.
I previously mentioned Squirrels. So, let’s talk about Squirrels for a minute. It may be a toss-up, as to which thing dog’s hate more, doorbells or Squirrels. Dog’s consider Squirrels to be the embodiment of pure evil, and all Squirrels must be killed on sight. It’s interesting how Squirrels invoke such a primal kill instinct in dog’s vs. birds, turtles, cats, possums, armadillos, etc., while Homer doesn’t particularly like them either, he doe’s not react with the same kill-on-sight behavior. Face it, if you own a dog, having a pet Squirrel is out of the question.
Using Homer, as an example, Homer absolutely hates squirrels, hate may not even be a strong enough word. Try to picture this, we have a really large yard, there is a set of steep concrete stairs, ten steps to the bottom to be precise. Homer, will lay at the top of the stairs, just inside the door, crouched down really low, just watching, and waiting. He is intently watching the really large Camphor tree in the middle of the backyard. This tree is home to many, many, Grey Squirrels, and Homer damn well knows it.
Homer will lay in wait, just watching and waiting, for hours at a time, That’s of course, assuming some unfortunate soul, makes the stupid decision to ring the front doorbell. In that case, all bets are off. Evidently doorbells, trumps the evil, despicable squirrels.
Anyway, the moment a Squirrel comes down from the tree, or even thinks about coming down, Homer, shoots down the stairs like a rocket, I would never have imagined he could move that fast. Due to the ludicrous speed, he gains from shooting down the stairs, at a full run, he makes a wide loop around the tree, and actually runs up the tree, and seriously, makes it about eight feet up the tree trunk, just below the first main branch. Of course, Homer is barking the whole time, just daring the Squirrel to come down, where he can get at them. I have no doubt in my mind, that if he was actually able to catch one, and he has tried literally hundreds of times, he would tear it to pieces. God help, the first Squirrel, that zigs, when it should have zagged.
There is something about squirrels, I have no idea what is is, that dogs absolutely despise. I know from watching Homer’s attempted kill missions that it must be something. I have notice though, how Squirrels make this “chattering” sound at the dog, especially when they are safely just out of reach. The only thing I can figure out is dogs must be able to understand the Squirrels language, at least in a rudimentary sort of way.
I always imagine that the Squirrels chattering must be the equivalent to: “Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, You can’t get me. You stupid, smelly piece of s–t,.” Obviously, the dog gets it, as he always becomes even more enraged.
Maybe, Dogs and Squirrels have been having this epic battle for centuries. All I know for certain is, if the Squirrel makes one mis-step, or for any reason is distracted, even for a moment, Homer, is going to have Squirrel for lunch. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame him.
In closing, Let me just say this. Now, that I have explained the error of your ways, in a clear, concise, and extremely eloquent manner, Please stop this madness right now. Because, as you can plainly see, DOGS HATE DOORBELLS!!!
As always,
I am…
Tom Dye, The Safety Guy
This news commentary is an original work of satire by Tom Dye, The Safety Guy.
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