Preference ranking procedure proposal for dogs: A preliminary study

Abstract In the pet food industry, single‐bowl or two‐bowl methods traditionally are used to determine food acceptance or preference by pets. To increase efficiency of preference testing, and to provide more options for preference testing, a preference ranking procedure is proposed. The ranking procedure includes simultaneous presentation of five samples of edible treats. This increases the efficiency and reduces the time of preference testing. A preliminary test of the procedure with 12 beagle dogs was conducted. Each animal was presented with five treats, in an identical, coded rubber puzzle toy, or “Kong.” Five phases were included in the test, each lasted 5 days. Phase 1 included training with commercial treats. Phases 2–4 used lab‐baked treats with five different ingredients in each category (fats, starches, and proteins, respectively) of a base recipe. Phase 5 included testing with commercial foods. The order and time of treat selection by dogs was recorded. Results showed this small sample of animals generally ranked 1–2 flavors above others, indicating that this procedure could be a more efficient method to determine preference than traditional test methods since more samples can be evaluated simultaneously. More research is needed to verify the method. Practical applications The pet food industry could benefit from this preference method in terms of gaining better insights into “liking” and maximizing outcomes with fewer resources than traditional methods require. Instead of evaluating one or two types of food in each test, this method can evaluate up to five different samples, increasing test efficiency. Further, the preference ranking procedure allows for insight into preference information based on direct multiple comparisons of single ingredient aromatics and flavor. These advantages make it imperative to further test the method with larger sets of animals with actual developmental products to determine its helpfulness for decision making in practice during the research and development of products.