Years ago, a dog's entire diet often consisted of table scraps. Of course, years ago our own diets were less processed and less packaged, and table scraps were more likely to have good nutritional value. Today, table scraps should be kept to a bare minimum to ensure your dog's health.

Keep Them Limited

Nutritionists recommend that treats of any kind, including table scraps, should not provide more than 5 to 10 percent of the dog's daily caloric intake. However, you're unlikely to know how many calories are in that chunk of baked potato with sour cream and morsel of pork chop. So, more realistic advice may be to give only a tiny amount of table scraps, on an occasional basis.

Don't use table scraps in an effort to encourage a finicky dog to eat. Unless you're willing to actually grind the food and the scraps together, the dog will likely eat the table scraps and leave the rest of the food behind. This will only encourage the dog's pickiness to the point that he won't eat anything but scraps. A diet consisting entirely of scraps of human food will quickly lead to obesity and digestive problems.

Foods to Avoid

With Yorkies, it's not a good idea to give fat trimmings from meat. It's simply too much fat for a small dog inclined to pancreatitis. If you want to give a treat of meat, offer a piece of lean meat instead.

You've probably heard that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. While it may not cause a dog to drop dead on contact, chocolate does contain certain elements that are harmful to dogs. The theobromine in chocolate can cause serious health disorders, ranging from vomiting to irregular heartbeat and even death. The darker the chocolate, the more theobromine it contains.

Onions can cause destruction of red blood cells in dogs, though the amount consumed has to be rather large to create this effect. Raisins and grapes have also created serious problems for some dogs, though no one yet understands why. And, of course, bones can splinter and puncture vital organs.