What are table scraps anyway? Sure, these are the left-overs of one’s meal. But your meal probably differs from my meal, so there is no clear definition.

A colleague, who regularly feeds his dogs table scraps in addition to premium dog food, told me the following story yesterday. He had fed this three dogs Indonesian table scraps. Two of them, the Australian Shepherds, could handle this without any problems. However, the Portuguese Water Dog got severe diarrhoea. When my colleague woke up in the morning and went downstairs, he discovered the huge smelly mess on the floor. For two days the unfortunate Portuguese walked around with bubbly sounds coming from his stomach and didn’t care so much for food. So what seems ok for one dog, may hurt the other.

This morning, when I was walking my Akita dog, I met a woman with a Husky. We chatted for a while and the conversation soon went to dog food (I didn’t even start

). She told me she feeds table scraps regularly. The other day she had been cooking a real spicy Chilli meal for her family. Without thinking about the spicyness of the food, she gave her pooch the left-overs. The dog developed severe diarrhoea and they had to urgently visit a vet in the weekend and get expensive medicines to prevent dehydration.

What can we learn from this?

What works for one dog, can get another one seriously ill. Don’t use your dogs as a waste bin. Throw fatty or spicy left-overs in the garbage bag. When in doubt, don’t ask your doggy. You have to be the wisest! Dogs aren’t like us. They can’t handle the greasy spicy foods we often like and there are ingredients in our food – onions for example - that are potentially toxic to our furry friends.

I sometimes give kitchen counter scraps to my pets. By this I mean quality ingredients like uncooked unsalted unflavored chicken, beef or fish. It’s not to substitute their food or to enrich it as all nutrients they need are provided in their daily menu. The kitchen counter scraps are just an occasional treat.

Do you want to learn more about dog food, deciphering dog food labels, recognizing dog food allergy symptoms, dog digestion processes and the differences between his and yours, the use of novel and new ingredients in dog food, and much more? Then I invite you to go and visit Best Dog Food Guide.