Do Dogs Prefer Fatty Foods by Lysi W.

This article has information about my experiments and facts about my hypothesis that my dog Mutlu prefers fattier foods to less fatty foods. 

First the facts: According to this article in Petcube, when

dogs steal food, they're acting on instinctual behavior. In

the wild, wolves have to eat anything they can to survive,

so when dogs steal food, they're just remembering what their instincts are telling them. And according to this article in

Ceasersway, in many cases, the underlying mechanism leading to increased hunger is the same: The dog's body is unable to absorb the nutrients in the food or digest it properly, so their appetite goes into overdrive. They are actually starving no matter how much food they eat, so they compensate by eating everything.  I did experiments for two days. The first day I did five sessions of letting my test subject Mutlu, a Redbone Coon Hound, choose between a slice of bread, a slice of butter, and a small carrot, each five feet away. After the tests, I put together my work and found that Mutlu chose bread first 3 times, carrot first 0 times, and butter first 2 times. He also chose bread last once, carrot last twice, and butter last twice. I came to the conclusion that Mutlu prefers fatty foods over non-fatty foods, but only food that was kind of fatty. 

One problem with my first experiment was that Mutlu went from one side to another, so the middle was always second, except for the one time he chose the middle first on the 3rd session on the first day. To solve this problem, the second day of experimenting I changed the experiment by only have two options, first bread verses carrot, and the winner would go against butter. 

I proved my hypothesis wrong. This is how I did it: First I wrote down my plan and set up. The second day I ran two sessions of six. For session one the choices were carrots and bread and then the winner of session one would be put against butter. I ran the first six tests and found that five out of six times Mutlu chose bread and only once he chose carrot. Next I stopped using carrots and started using butter and bread and then ran the next six sessions. .I found out that Mutlu chose bread five out of six times again and only chose butter once. That's how I tested my hypothesis: does Mutlu tend to prefer fattier foods over less fatty foods? Based on these experiments, I am fairly certain he does not.

I don't know why Mutlu prefers bread more than butter, but it could possibly be the same reasons I like plain bread better than plain butter: I think bread tastes better because it smells better and it is easier to eat because it does not smear. The part where I said "it smells better" could be relevant because Mutlu has a stronger sense of smell and also the part I said about it not smearing could also be relevant to this because he had to lick the plates to finish the butter and it took him longer.

The conclusion to my work is that Mutlu likes bread more than carrots and butter. I believe that Mutlu likes bread more than butter and carrots is because he chose bread first 15 times in total and carrot first once in total and butter first twice in total, so since bread had a higher quantity, it could have a certain scent or texture that Mutlu enjoys.