90% of dogs have no problems with good kibble. They can digest it well and get necessary vitamins and nutrients. Saw dust is common filler used in human food. Ground up trees is essentially a source of cellulose(fiber). Dogs and people alike can not digest much of this fiber, so it is considered a filler.
Some dogs might be allergic some dogs not.
My personal view is that if I am going to buy a bag of saw dust at the same price as a bag of dog food I can get it a hell of lot cheaper than a bag of RC costs.

I feed similar to Brenda. I feed Raw in the mornings and kibble at night (EVO brand orijin is very good also). My reasoning is as follows. Many people spend money on supplements. Most good kibbles have everything a dogs needs for good health. If you were to figure out your dogs weight and the amount of recommended vitamins you will come very close with a good kibble. If certain things are low, like Vita E and A and D remember they are fat soluble and do not need to be given everyday. There is some good science out there that says to much of some of these can be harmful. As I see it, 100% raw is great if you can produce variety and supplement it but good quality kibble is OK too. A good quality kibble will produce or simulate that variety. So you add ease and cost benefits.

Remember when in the wild, dogs eat herbivores. These herbivores have plant materials inside their gut. The idea in kibble is that if you grind it up fine enough it will resemble partially digested fiber.
Good arguments can be made against even good quality, but try to keep a critical eye and put things in context.

Your proposed explanation makes sense and that's exactly what I do as well, I tend to feed kibble either Royal Canin Puppy 33 or some EVO I have there, good point on the vitamins yes, ADEK, I figured let me combine a good quality kibble,EVO, Royal Canin with RAW; in my RAW fridge I have chicken necks, chicken hearts, red meat, chicken quarters and some ground beef. So we'll see, although I plan on being 100 percent when my dog gets to 1year.

 Quote: jeff cambeis

Most good kibbles have everything a dogs needs for good health.

Poultry, beef, and lamb kibble do not provide long-chain Omega 3s. (Fish kibble is a slightly different story, but the kibble process, IMO, does not even allow the long-chain Omega 3s in fatty fish to survive intact.)

Modern grain-fed slaughter animals do not have the Omega 3s stored in their muscles and fat the way pasture-fed animals did and the way wild animals do. That's the biggest of several causes for the huge imbalance in modern diets between 6s and 3s. (The whole story has been posted in the correct feeding forum many times.)

Further, even the kibbles with "Omega 3!" emblazoned on the front are talking about flax or canola (every one I have seen). Humans can convert these plant sources of Omega 3 EFAs to the beneficial DHA and EPA, although not efficiently -- about a 15% rate. Dogs have about a zero conversion ability.

Dogs need long-chain Omega 3s from marine sources.

And Vitamin E is used in processing the fish oil.

So no, kibble doesn't have everything a dog needs for good health, even if we talk about just the "supplement" stuff and not the major ingrediants.

A kibble diet needs fish oil and E just as a raw diet does.

To the O.P.: If you want to continue the Royal Canin topic, please open a thread in an appropriate forum; no more replies to this thread in this location.

http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/postlist/Board/12
is where the topic goes. Thanks.

I agree with the others. There are lot better choices out there. I'm looking at Darwin's, but will probably go with the dehydrated food that Leerburg offers.

Hi, Linda!

That's a year-old thread. Just FYI, in case you haven't noticed the post dates.

Welcome to the board!