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