Rughy is kind of a special case, being a spirit. I always thought she was an omnivore, and thus could taste much more than your average cat.

Not to mention I've seen quite a few cats that like bakery items, potato chips, french fries, etc. It's not the carbs that attract them, I think, it's the salt.

My cats loved bakery items, one had a taste for homemade apple pie, too. I think it's a combination of fats, salt and different flavorings. Animals acquire tastes as we do, in the end...

Good point! Those are high fat items and that is something even carnivores can enjoy. Dogs are omnivorous to begin with - I think it comes from their wolf ancestors. Wolves are not obligate carnivores, though they are very close, and we humans bed omnivory into them.

Dogs are taxonomically carnivores and functionally omnivores. They also acquired the ability to digest starch during domestication, which wolves don't have.

But wolves can and do eat berries and other sugary foods when they have no meat available. It'll keep them from starving, but it isn't exactly a preferred diet, and they cannot live on it long.

We took that slight detour into omnivory and supercharged it with our selective breeding.

Vaguely related pet peeve of mine, the implication that the diet animals evolved to eat in the wild is healthy for them doesn't really describe evolution. Evolved diets promote fertility as opposed to long-term health, and if you die of some preventable disease after you've had your offspring, evolution doesn't care.

Absolutely true. You evolve by having offspring. Once that's done natural selection quickly takes over. It's also why in nature many babies are disposable, because it is far less expensive to replace them than replace the mother.

Ha ha ha, aaaawwwwwwwwww

Awwwww this is so adorable though!

My dogs love anything they think is 'people food'. I don't have enough experience with cats and don't particularly care to.

The raccoons outside are silly. They generally all love marshmallows/sweets, but how they prioritize different types of food is fun. One in particular will not eat the goldfish or croutons but I've had others visit that did like them. Some days they grab the dog food first, some days the sweets, some days the seeds.

That said, I love the concept here. I kind of wish human society would be less reliant on sugar, and exploring that in anthro societies is a really fun thought experiment.