Hello I have a question regarding the Royal Canine Dog Food. Is this dog food considered a premium food or is not as good as they claim to be?
Thank You for the imput.
Tony C.

The quick answer? It sucks.

Here is a list of better choices:

http://www.leerburg.com/all-natural%20kibble.htm

Raw feeding is the best :wink:

Raw feeding is probably the BEST choise if you do it right. But among kibble that is available where I live, my personal experience with 4 different dogs (dachshund, french bulldog, dobermann, collie mix) tells me this is one of the best.

Royal Canin is full of grain and substandard ingredients and is not a suitable food for dogs. Like Sarah posted, there are MUCH better kibbles out there if you can't do raw.

Ed or Kelly needs to move this thread to the appropriate place, I don't have moderator powers today!

I like Orijen kibble.

From what I understand, Royal Canin is still in the middle of a lawsuit involving their food...
http://www.acreaturecomfort.com/royalcaninrecall.htm

one of the main reasons it bothers me(and why others may like it so much) is that they have breed specific food.
There is just simply no need for that. Your dog may need smaller/bigger portions, more/less protein based on activity level, but a bulldog,beagle,yorkie and a shepherd to not need different shaped/flavored food with "special" ingredients.....

plus, the ingredients just aren't good.

But does anyone have any idea about why my dog is doing so miraculously well on it? I understand what you are saying here but when I look at my dog after eating RC Energy 4800 only two weeks in a row, this is a completely different sight than with other foods I have tried with her (and there are many). I want to offer her the BEST I possibly can and when I look at her, there is no dubt that RC is the best for her (despite the fact that they are raising the price so high, I think I have to start skipping my own lunch it they keep it up). But how could it have this effect on her if it is really a crappy brand? Please, if someone has any idea, I whould appreciate it a whole lot....

Jaana, I fed my bullmastiff Royal Canine as a puppy for a few months and ended up with a fat puppy. (Maybe not Royal Canine's fault but it caused me to start looking more closely at what I was feeding her.) I know it is hands down the most famous kibble here in Estonia and all the vets here will tell you it's the best, but after finding this web page and learning about raw foods, I did some research on Royal Canine and found that it has sawdust in it. It's not listed as sawdust, I forget actually what it is listed as, (it's been so long ago now) but if you look up what the meaning of it is, it's sawdust.

I now feed my bully Orijen kibble in the mornings and raw in the evenings. I found that there is not enough variety of meat here (for a reasonable price) to be able to feed only raw and be confident that Star is getting all of the nutrients that she needs, but Orijen is a grain free kibble so I feel safe with that knowing she's getting one of the best kibbles out there and she gets chicken leg quarters, liver, necks, ground beef from time to time, fish, etc in the evenings.

I don't know why your dobe is doing so great on Royal Canine, but I would say that anything we eat, good and bad, for a long period of time affects us in the long run. It does for our dogs as well. Feeding our dogs corn and grain and sawdust may not cause any problems in the beginning but over time we'll see the results.

I honestly don't know a single other person here in Estonia that feeds raw. I've asked around and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. But you can get Orijen delivered to you from Tartu free of charge and there is a place in Viimsi that sells Canidae, so we do have choices other than Royal Canine. If you want the information where you can get it here, send me a PM and I'll e-mail you with it.