How about feeding your dog a left over?

I think you might misunderstand the use of tags.

Depends on what you call a leftover.  The fat and grizzle from a piece of meat?  No, don't feed it.  The lean meat or leftover veggies without onions?  Go for it as long as they aren't highly sauced or seasoned.

 Ari doesn't get much leftovers, since we generally don't generate them lol (or they're meant for us for lunch the next day).  However, she often gets raw egg yolks since I usually cook my scrambled eggs with just 1 yolk to 3 whites.  She gets the raw giblets and neck when I cook up a whole chicken.  My only stipulation with "human" food and/or leftovers is that it's put in her bowl. 

I won't give her overly fatty bits of meat (too much fat for her upsets her stomach), no grapes, onions or something with a lot of sauce on it.  

rajehn27

How about feeding your dog a left over? is it okay? or dangerous to their health, please help me.

"left overs" as in the last french fries, or that last piece of leftover pizza?  No -- THAT is trash.  If it's "junk food" for us don't feed it to the dog.

But  real food?  veggies, meat -- sure.

 As someone said above -- the list of things dogs can NOT have is pretty short:  onions, grapes, and I add nuts and nut oils (yes, even peanut butter -- nuts generally are not well digested by dogs).  Also "seeds" (like the seeds in a grape are actually what bothers dogs, but generally things like apple seeds, pits from fruit, the seeds in pumpkin or squash)

The biggest caution is that you figure that in to their diet. 

 Meaning -- you don't just add stuff BECAUSE you have it left over.  Make it a part of their diet.  If you have mashed potato and some pot roast left over?  Cut that up and add to their kibble for a meal.  But **decrease** the kibble. 

If it's veggies -- mash them up fully and stir them in to their food -- carrots, peas, asparagus -- most any veggies are really good for them but dogs can't digest cellulose so you have to mash it up rather than leave it in chunks.

 What Callie said about adding it to their diet is also what I do (rather than in addition to their regular kibble amount).  If we're cooking up a roast chicken, her dinner is the giblets and neck and maybe a sprinkle of kibble (depending upon the size of giblets and neck). 

Every now and then Ari will get a home cooked meal.  Her favorite is cooked sweet potato, cooked green beans with giblets and chicken neck.  She'll lick the bowl for forever to get every last little bit lol.  

JesDaMom

It depends on the dog.

As the owner of an XL sized dog who has a great GI tract (he has allergies but we know what they are and don't feed those) I don't see healthy leftovers as an issue.

Some of the things he gets are: healthy veggies (almost always steamed), mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes, lean meats and fish. He might get to lick the plate/bowl after pasta but only the plate is essentially empty. I don't worry about cheese but I will say that even with a very large dog I am minimal in size of treats. He doesn't get a ton of cheese, just a really small piece (nickel size).

The only 'bad' thing he gets is some of the crust of pizza. We might have pizza 4-5 times a year and we don't give him much of the crust but he loves his pizza bones.

the leftovers he gets are healthier than any dog treat so I don't worry

 OK, I'll admit it - my dogs get lots of 'last bites'. My husband always leaves a few bites on his dinner plate to share with Buddy and Ribbon. It's never much, more like a taste. I do draw the line with my cocktails though. Mine. All mine!

denise m

 OK, I'll admit it - my dogs get lots of 'last bites'. 

Of course, we don't give Ruby anything toxic (like grapes, raisins, onions), and we don't let her eat anything really greasy, fatty, buttery, heavily seasoned, etc. We've been known to rinse a bite of steak or veggie under water to get rid of any sauce or seasonings, or we'll save a bite on our plates BEFORE we season it for ourselves.  She knows that she gets a bite or two of whatever we're having when we're finished.  She waits patiently and only reminds us with a whine if we're eating REALLY slowly! 

I know raw veggies are tough to digest for her, but she loves to crunch on things like bits of carrot or broccoli when we're chopping them.  Last night I gave her a couple steamed green beans, and she gobbled them up.  Our morning routine is she gets to lick the bowl after I finish my steel cut oats.  I consider her the pre-rinse cycle for the dishwasher!

Hey Tracey, thanks for not leaving me hanging out there by myself. LOL! Actually most people I know give their dogs 'bites' of their food. Heck, when I was a kid that's all our dog was fed. After dinner my mother scraped all the leftovers off our plates and into the dog's dish. That was what she ate. Basically everything and anything. There wasn't even dog food in our house. On the rare occasion there were no leftovers to be had, my mother would take a slice of bread (usually the heel) and cover it with milk and raw egg for our dog.  I remember at Christmas the dog would get the whole turkey carcass to take outside. How she ever survived, I will never know but survive she did for 14 yrs.

denise m

kid that's all our dog was fed. After dinner my mother scraped all the leftovers off our plates and into the dog's dish. That was what she ate. Basically everything and anything. There wasn't even dog food in our house. On the rare occasion there were no leftovers to be had, my mother would take a slice of bread (usually the heel) and cover it with milk and raw egg for our dog.  I remember at Christmas the dog would get the whole turkey carcass to take outside. How she ever survived, I will never know but survive she did for 14 yrs.

My maternal grandparent's dogs ate the same diet.  No way would those frugal people ever have considered buying dog food.  My mom was very similar but she did buy our childhood dogs kibble to supplement the leftovers.  The cheapest kibble she could find.  Dogs lived off scraps for much longer than the high end dog food choices have been around. 

I gave Gabby a little bite of chorizo and egg this morning.  I never knew a dog could make such a happy slurp.  If she could have let out a grito she would have. lol

denise m

Hey Tracey, thanks for not leaving me hanging out there by myself.

Jackie, I can just imagine the look on Gabby's face after eating such a tasty breakfast treat.  I know all the flavor additives and sugars in the lousy brands of dog foods are terrible, but I find it interesting when I read something that discourages them by saying, "Dogs don't need food to be palatable."  I know what they mean by that statement, but I'm sure we all know when our dogs REALLY love the taste of something. 

I remember one time when Tonka was coughing and hacking because of a chunk of biscuit or something stuck in his throat, yet we couldn't get him to take a drink of water.  We called the vet, and she said if he was breathing and not choking, then try giving him some plain yogurt to help it slide down.  He'd had yogurt before, but we didn't have any in the fridge that day.  I checked the freezer -- lo and behold, we had Haagen Daas vanilla ice cream.  I put a couple tablespoons in his bowl.  Honest to doG --- you could see his eyes get huge as soon as he swallowed it.  He looked at us like, 'Whoa!  What the heck was THAT?!"  He came right over to me, sniffing furiously, desperate to find the rest of that carton!  He definitely realized it tasted much better than plain yogurt!!  And, it eliminated the coughing problem, so it was a win/win!

I'm the same way.  When I was a kid, leftovers was just about all the dogs got to eat.  If there were a very few leftovers after a particular meal, Mom had a can of dog food on standby and she would give the dog a couple of spoon fulls.  A single can of dog food would last a month or more.  If you eat like we ate back then (almost no fast foods), the a diet of leftovers is healthier for your dog than any commercial dog food you can buy.  Thor gets all the leftovers now although there usually isn't much.  He follows whoever is cleaning off the table to the kitchen sink to wait for his part. 

ETA:  Don't worry about fat & greese in the leftovers ... they aren't bad for dogs like they are for us.