Do dogs have a sense of taste?

Answer 1

Dogs sense of taste is much less sensitive than humans with dogs only having about one thousand seven hundred taste buds in their mouths while humans have about nine thousand.

It is generally accepted that dogs are not that picky or selective when it comes to the taste of the food that they eat. In fact sometimes it seems that a even a well fed and nourished dog will eat anything regardless of whether it is spoiled or horrid tasting and there are even many dogs that will eat the feces of other animals or dogs.

Knowing this it is obvious that dogs can in fact be choosy about what they eat and will normally not eat something that they find disagreeable.
In the wild it is reasonable to assume that dogs (or other animals) judge by their sense of smell and instinctively know what kinds of foods are good for them and what foods would be harmful or bad for them.

Answer 2

Yes they do, it may not be like ours but they can differentiate between certain tastes. Chapter five in "how Dogs think: What the world looks like to them and why they act the way they do" written by Stanley Coren, talks about a dog's sense of taste. If you are interested in dogs and/or dog behaviour this is a great book to read.

Answer 3

They do, although its not quite like that of humans. Dogs can taste, but they can't discriminate a good taste from a bad as well as a human can - their tongues were more designed to just taste what is edible and what is not, hence dogs will often pick stuff up in their mouth with the intentions of eating it only to later spit it out and play with it.

Answer 4

I think so - you ever smelt/tasted dog food? now you know why dogs lick their testicles afterwards - to get rid of the taste of the food...

Answer 5

Not like people do. I do believe I read that they do alot of the tasting by smell. If something doesn't smell good to them they wont eat it but if it does smell good they do.

Answer 6

Yes....my dog always wants to taste my food.......

Answer 7

yes

Answer 8

Of course!!

Answer 9

yes they have

Answer 10

course they do.