Basic Trope: A character accidentally eats pet food.
- Straight: Alice is eating biscuits she found in the closet, but Bob notices the packet has a picture of a dog on it and the biscuits are shaped like bones. On taking a closer look, he notices it's dog food and says "You're eating dog food", to which Alice does a Spit Take and shouts "I Ate WHAT?!".
- Exaggerated: Alice eats a whole packet of dog biscuits before realizing they are dog biscuits.
- Downplayed: Alice is about to eat some dog biscuits but changes her mind before eating when she sees the picture of a dog on the front.
- Justified: Alice was so hungry she reached for the nearest thing that looked like food, before taking a closer look.
- Inverted: A dog mistakes human food for dog food, or Alice feeds her dog human food, thinking it is dog food.
- Subverted: Bob thinks the biscuits are dog biscuits but it turns out they were not.
- Double Subverted: They were cat biscuits.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged:
- "You're eating dog food, just kidding, ... it's cat food, no, only joking it's people food. As in, it's made of people, and designed for cats....... HA! Gotcha! It's actually for dogs."
- The dog food in question is actually specifically designed to be safe and healthy for consumption by both humans and dogs, for whatever reason.
- Averted: Nobody mistakes pet food for human food, or nobody has pets.
- Enforced: It's a Gross-Out Show.
- Lampshaded: "You're eating dog food"
- Invoked: The Prankster switches the labels of the pet food and the human food.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Alice always looks twice before eating anything.
- Discussed: "How do I avoid eating, well, dog food again?" "Well, dog food usually tastes like meat and the biscuits might be shaped like bones, also the packet or can usually has a picture of a dog on it."
- Conversed: "I wonder what dog food tastes like? However if the characters on telly that do it are anything to go by I might not want to know"
- Implied: Alice is seen in the background, eating from a packet with a picture of a dog on it. Bob is then seen saying something to her and she is seen spitting it out.
- Played for Laughs: Alice does a comical Spit Take.
- Deconstructed: Alice gets sick from the dog food.
- Reconstructed: ...and learns An Aesop about checking what you're eating.
- Played For Drama: This takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting, and the humans are reduced to eating pet food to survive.
Back to Eating Pet Food
