Are goats more discriminating than dogs?

Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it to feed something savory to a dog. There’s always the fun of watching dogs catch tossed food, contorting their leaping bodies left right center up down to grab a morsel. It can be amazing if the dog is truly athletic. It can also be fun if you are in a mildly sadistic mood, tossing inedible or unsavory things to a dog that can’t resist catching whatever is thrown. Like yesterday when I peeled strips of skin from a half-banana I was eating and tossed them to the dog. She caught every bitter piece of banana skin, then spat it out onto the floor. When I stopped tossing, she re-examined each piece, trying to understand why she shouldn’t eat them, then headed for the water dish to wash away the bitter taste. I apologized for my bad behavior and tossed her a few nice pieces of cheese.

I should be flogged.

But here’s my complaint: Dogs gulp. They don’t savor. They don’t mull. They don’t even chew unless the piece they’re eating is too big to swallow in a gulp without choking. Somehow they detect in a few nanoseconds whether or not the morsel is edible, then they gulp. You could toss the most exquisite sumptuous piece of food to them and it might as well be a lump of coal. A stale, dusty piece of popcorn that you sweep up from beneath the car seat where it had hidden for several months is equivalent to a ten-dollar clump of caviar.

Decades ago I lived in a house full of college students, of which I was one. An ag major brought a big goat, a really nasty animal, to live in the two-acre field in back of the house. For several semesters the goat had been used as a roping target and was fed up with cowboys chasing and tying and abusing him, so he simply stopped running. I tried to be nice to the goat, but got chased and butted in return for my affections. Someone told us that goats really liked liquor and got very mellow after a few sips. So I offered the goat a cup of red wine, which he practically inhaled. He treated me with some respect for awhile. Days later I offered him a little glass of single-malt Scotch whisky, brought to us by one of the ag professors. The goat REALLY liked that, and was very friendly to everyone for several days. Offerings of cheap jug wine were still accepted by the goat, but he wouldn’t be nice to us for more than a few hours afterward. I learned that the quality (price) of beverage had a direct effect on the goat’s friendliness.

I haven’t tried booze on dogs, but I truly doubt that the quality of beverage will have any effect on their behavior since they simply ingest without discrimination. Besides, dogs are friendly to start with; they are indiscriminate, non-judgmental, trusting eating machines. Hence my question: Are goats more discriminating than dogs?