Do dogs have the same taste buds as humans??

Question

i was thinking about my dog and how she likes to get our people food,my mom found her on the couch eating watermelon drops..

but then at the same time shes a dog and she is willing to pick through the litter box and eat the cat c**p.

so do dogs have taste the same things as humans??

and i ask this because apparently dogs dont see like humans, they see in black and white, not in color..

Answer 1

That's a really good question... and I've always wondered it myself.. but I would think that since dogs can smell better than people can, they could probably taste better than people can too... since smell and taste are linked. I'm not a scientist or anything, so I have no idea.. that's just my educated guess.  

Answer 2

As far as their sense of smell goes, theirs is different from humans. When we eat a bowl of soup, we smell the soup as a whole, but the dog smells each ingredient in the soup, like the individual carrots, rice, chicken.  I would imagine that is what fuels their appetite- the smell of the collective content.  I suppose that is why they go for "cat cookies" if given the chance.  We smell c**p, but they smell the different ingredients in it.   :P

Answer 3

Dog's taste buds are slightly different than ours.  I think they have more salt/sweet taste buds than we do..  and less sour/bitter taste buds.

Thats why dogs have a strong preference for meat and sweets, and dont ussually like things like vinegar, pickles, and citrus fruits.

A dog's idea of whats gross and what's food is different too.  Remember dogs also have an enhanced sence of smell and taste.  There is also a special sensory organ in the roof of their mouth called the jacobson's organ.. most animals have this organ.  He is getting more information from cat p**p than just taste when he eats it.

Also

dogs DO see color.. however their spectrum is more limited than ours.  What they see is not as vibrant as what we see.

Answer 4

Dogs do not see in black and white, that's an old myth. They just don't see the range of colours we do - I'm not sure anyone's worked out exactly how they see, but they certainly do recognise colours.

Dogs and cats do not have the same taste 'buds' that we have, owing to their different natural diet and evolution. I do remember learning that cat's don't appear to have a 'sweet' recepticle on their tongues - would make sense to me. Sure, they like chocolate but I think that's more for the dairy than the sugar. I think it's the same with dogs.

I think it's not just to do with taste, their eating poo - like when they roll in fox poo, it's not so much because they love it it's because the smell makes them s**y to other dogs!

OK, just read this on the net, who knows how reliable it is but it is at least referenced;

"Taste: A dog's senses of taste and smell are closely linked and it is possible that dogs gain more imformation about food from its smell than from its taste.  Most of a dog's taste buds are clustered around the tip of the tongue.  Dogs can detect bitter, sweet, salty, and sour tastes, but their sense of taste is relatively poor and they have only one-sixth the number of taste buds that humans have (Whitehead, 1999)"

So there you go.

Chalice

Answer 5

i think my dog likes our food more than her own, she will eat anything, ice cream, ham etc. Dogs go by smell not colour.

Answer 6

The links below provides a simple explanation about the dogs senses and should put some things into perspective.

The comment about dogs having the ability to see only black and white is not right though.  My son did a project on the human eye while in elementary (?) school and comparison was done to the vision of a dog and I clearly remember their vision is not just b/w.

Here's a really good link for a comparison of human vision to canine vision.  

http://www.uwsp.edu/PSYCH/dog/LA/DrP4.ht...

Answer 7

even better,