Some of these flavors and ingredients may seem unusual for dogs and cats, but Dicke mentions that the foods undergo a variety of taste and palatability tests, as dogs and cats rely heavily on their senses of smell and taste when evaluating food. After the food passes the smell test, preference testing of taste and texture is often conducted in the pets’ home environment to collect data in real-life conditions, she says. The tests allow the company to determine the most desirable tastes and textures of products, and this ultimately leads to the acceptable products being sold in stores.