Can dogs taste is a question that many people would like to have an answer to, and this article will try to answer the question. Anyone that has owned a dog would immediately say that a dog cannot taste, because dog owners invariably get to watch their best friend eat and gnaw on some pretty nasty things. Any dog owner will have a story of their dog eating week old food from the trash, eating their carpet, chewing on the furniture, or even eating feces.
You would be wrong though, dogs do have a sense of taste, but it is less developed than ours is. When you catch your dog chewing on a rug, or the couch, or your favorite shoes it is not because those items taste good, it is because the dog is bored, or frustrated. Your dog uses its sense of smell as part of its sense of taste, which is why they get so excited when you are cooking dinner. They smell the meat cooking; their noses tell them that it will taste good. Since their noses have already told them the food is good, when you give them a bite they will wolf it down without hesitation.
Dogs can discern the difference between sweet, sour, bitter, or salty flavors. This is why spraying bitter liquids on things will keep your dog from chewing on them. Dogs hate anything that has a bitter taste. Their distaste for anything bitter is also proven by dogs that love fruit; they will eat a banana, strawberry, or grape and then turn their nose up at lemons or limes. On the other hand, there is evidence all around that the sense of taste is under-developed in dogs. Their lowered ability to taste is the reason that they are satisfied to eat the same food every day. The fact that they can stand to eat items that would make a human sick is also testament to the fact that although dogs can taste, it is not a highly tuned sense for them.
