What Is Palatability?
The palatability of a food is its degree of acceptability to an animal, as determined by the sensory response to specific chemical and physical characteristics – namely smell, taste and texture. The combination of smell and taste is referred to as ‘flavor’.1 The relative importance of these sensory qualities that determine food preference differs slightly in dogs and cats. In dogs, the ranking is smell, taste and texture; in cats, smell, texture and taste. Both species are particularly sensitive to odors and tastes associated with meat,2 but the appearance of the food is of little importance. Faced with a choice of foods, dogs will smell them and almost immediately decide which one they want to eat. However, they will periodically sample the others, even when one food is strongly preferred. If the food originally chosen is more palatable, they will quickly return to eating it.3 In general, dogs will pick up the food with their teeth. On the other hand, cats will not only smell all the
