Jack Haskins: Christmas leftovers can be a problem

DEAR OLD TRAINER: This is the first Christmas we have had Sam, a 1-year old boxer/German shepherd mix. He was living in the streets before we got him and seems to love table scraps. Is it OK to feed him just table scraps? How about leftovers from Christmas?

DEAR MARION: Table scraps are fine as long as they contain the nutrition Sam needs. After all, leftovers were the reason dogs decided to domesticate our ancestors in the first place and they have prospered for 40,000 years eating those scraps.

Many dogs prefer table scraps. The first time I offered commercial dog food to Rowdy, the border collie who lived in a homeless encampment in Golden Gate Park before she adopted me, she reacted like Paris Hilton in a Walmart. She was used to table scraps and didn’t recognize kibble as fit to eat.

The one advantage of dog food is the list of ingredients, including percentage of protein, which gives you a general idea what your dog is eating.

Protein has been the basic ingredient of the canine diet for millions of years, so monitor the scraps to ensure Sam is getting adequate protein. If he is, then table scraps will do the job.

Christmas leftovers are a problem for all dogs. More dogs require visits to the vet from eating Holiday leftovers than for any other reason.

Dogs realize there is a party going on when everyone gathers for Christmas dinner. They smell the food and will down anything they are offered, but dogs do best eating the same diet every day.

Replacing the daily meal with rich leftovers is guaranteed to cause problems. A little extra treat is not going to harm your dog, so use common sense – keep the amount small, never give turkey bones, chicken bones or desserts – and your dog will enjoy the holidays without a problem.

DEAR OLD TRAINER: I found your column on the Internet and was thrilled to see you do not like crate training. I don’t like it, either, but I hear people recommend it sometimes. What is your reasoning so I can have a comeback?

DEAR DERRICK: I made my decision to oppose crate “training” the same way I make all decisions – by applying the test of logic.

The first thing to understand is that it is not training at all. It is a device to avoid training by confining a dog instead of taking the time to train it.

Breeders embrace it because it enables them to unload hard-to-sell puppies on unsuspecting buyers. If a buyer tells a breeder he works all day, the breeder says, “no problem, just stuff it in a box.”

Leaving a puppy or a full-grown dog in a crate has the same negative impact on a dog that confining a human in a space one-third the size of a prison cell would have on the human.

And the sad part is there is no need for it. It’s easy to train a dog to stay in a place by simply taking the time to do it. And if you need to confine a dog on occasion, put it in a bathroom or the kitchen and put a baby gate across the entrance. Leave food, water, bedding and toys.

If you can avoid using a crate by training, and the training is easy, why not train the dog and get rid of the crate?

I hope once people understand there is no reason to use a crate they will quite quit using one. And for those few who insist they must use a crate, never confine a dog for more than an hour and never put the dog in as punishment.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 9:27 AM with the headline "Jack Haskins: Christmas leftovers can be a problem."