Yes I should have pointed that out - only in the dish - I never, ever feed from the table!!

Personally, I have never and will never give scraps. I see two potential worst-case scenarios happening:

1. I feed her from the table and she begins to learn that the table is a good source of food and so loiters around it begging.

2. I give whatever is left from my plate into her bowl, in which case, she starts going loopy around me whenever I get up, expecting her bowl to be filled, and/or loitering around my plate waiting.

Both are behaviours I would rather not encourage in the first place. I also feel that it lessens the value of treating in training. Of course, these are just my views, based on my current dog and past dogs.

Oh good, another feeding-fascist like me Scraps out of bowls is one thing, but scraps from the table NOOOOOOO! In fact, food from hands is strictly for training sessions as far as I'm concerned!

Although I choose to stick with actual dog food in the main, I don't see a problem with choosing to feed dogs the kind of things you eat, as long as you remember that their nutritional needs are very different to yours and balance nutrients accordingly. Also I would avoid giving them any heavily processed food: instant gravy, jars of pasta sauce, ready meals etc... These things tend to contain waaaay more salt than we should be eating, and could do some serious damage to doggies.

We give scraps from our plates into their dishes and this never happens, it simply isn't allowed in our house!

Although we don't feed them around the same time we eat so that could be why?

Oh and I forgot to mention. Since i've been with my OH i've never seen a table scrap - he is like my little dustbin

How do you stop a dog hovering round the table?
I tend to resort to a small hide chew while we eat to distract her for a while.

Well Woody usually goes to his basket at mealtimes, that is if he chooses to be in that part of the kitchen.

And Pickles is too stupid to know that we are eating "food"!

It is obvious though that in Woody's previous home he was allowed to be fed from the table. All through mealtimes his eyes and ears are twitching but he knows he's not allowed to beg so just sits there looking guilty!

We had a major problem when we got Suki at 10 weeks old. The breeder's daughter had been feeding the pups off her plate!!! We couldn't work out what was going on at first and why such a young pup was literally bouncing off the walls for food off the plate.

We had to put her in her crate for a good number of weeks and eventually we've now been able to allow her freedom while we're eating. She sits and stares at our plates but eventually she lies down when she's bored. She does get some scraps but the kids and OH have been warned not to give her anything until they have finished eating - and no processed foods or gravy. Usually a small piece of meat or some veg.

The one thing that she does go daft for though is toast. It's the first thing she thinks of when she wakes up and if the toaster 'pops' she is straight into the kitchen with her paw at the ready!!

can we have a poll for any dog that doesnt like toast !!!!
of course its got to be buttered - bruno literally spits unbuttered toast back out again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trouble with a retriever it doesn't have to be on a plate to be classified as food - anything that vaguely looks food shaped is fair game!
We try to ensure that any scraps, be they from preparing the veg to leftovers go into her bowl.