Just like yours, Jamie...;)

He gets an absolute butt kicking in the comments!

I'll stick with my previous comments re kibble. Most of the ingredients are pointless and have little or no nutritional benefit.
Find one that agrees with your dogs (price is not an indicator of "quality" and understand that it is a filler/roughage and not much more.

I posted that link because it was a BALANCED argument, you know, fors and against.

You obviously stopped at the butt kicking comments and didn't read the others...lol.

Its what debate is about, isn't it?

Anyhow, overall, I agree with you.
IMO, kibble has no value except negative values.

As for using it as a filler or roughage ONLY, buy a bag that is packaged in cardboard or paper bags, throw the kibble out and feed the dogs the packaging, much healthier but a bloody expensive way to give them roughage...;)

Besides all that, one thing I find puzzling in all articles I've read lately on Wolves is they pass on the point that Wolves eat smaller prey whole, then they most certainly DO eat CARBS AND STARCHES!
Nowhere has it been mentioned that before devouring these prey do they detach the stomach before eating it???
If they detested carbs that much, they would do what cats do to mice...detach organs and leave them...puzzling.

The subject is GREYHOUNDS...NOT WOLVES.
Wolves aren't caged in numbers and don't have controlled diets.
They aren't subjected to the same issues closed housing animals are.
They aren't trained in controlled environments.
They haven't gone through the genetic changes Greys have.
The list goes on...

Interesting debate...
I guess we all kind of get there in the end in a thousand different ways...hopefully.

I also believe that dogs will eat the guts of prey animals.
That's how people try to justify feeding vegetables.

The difference is, the contents of the gut are already partially pre-digested and broken down to a point where the dog can actually digest and absorb the "vegetable matter" even without having the necessary gut and saliva enzymes. The food has already been processed for them.

Putting beet, kelp, peas, corn etc, etc into kibble is pointless. The dog will struggle to digest any of it and utilise the nutrition within.

I believe the same for blended, cooked or raw vegetables added to food. Nothing we do to it will do much to increase the dog's ability to digest it at the cellular level.

That's why I think the ONLY effective way to feed vegetables, starches or carbs is in a pre-digested, broken down form........i.e. offal.

The problem with offal though is it has a LOT of bacteria in it.

" The info night we had at Dapto with vet Dr. ???...in the wild dogs get 'carbs' through eating whats in the prey animals gut which is mostly already digested(broken down)...so the Magic Bullet makes some sense...he also said the carbs(kibble) should be fed in the mornings...he prefered rice(white) to other 'grains)..."

So let's say you are right and feeding vegs in any way serves little or no nutritional value at all.
So the only upside to that would be, there is relatively no harm in it either.

Let's say you are also right in feeding kibble supplies roughage.
The down side to that is you are also feeding ingredients that cause complications, at a premium price.

In your opinion, neither is ideal, so neither is good enough.

The question is...
What is the ideal addition to a raw meat diet that delivers the ideal balance without negative consequences?

FWIW My hunch is you are right.
Dogs might not have the necessary digestive enzymes in their saliva and they certainly don't chew a mouthful of food 50 times before swallowing.
By all reports, they do however possess those enzymes in their gut and intestines, so by processing vegs and grain prior to feeding, the chances are SOME will be absorbed into their system.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I don't know what the answer is.

Kibble suffers from the same shortcomings.....but you have to give them something in addition to raw meat.

Maybe instead of vegetables they should be making kibble with hides, fur, bone, offal etc to provide the fibre/roughage component of the diet?

That last article that Micheal G put up with the vet saying (in the comments) about the protein in grasses - that was really missing the point. Grass seeds (wheat, corn etc.) and grasses are utterly different in composition.

As far as grazing animals like cows and goats, they have a very elaborate digestive system, including gut bacteria specifically to break down cellulose that makes up the walls of plant cells, and convert it to energy - a goat is really a cellulose processing factory on 4 legs.

Another way to break down plant cell walls is to COOK THEM. Humans cook food to make it easier to digest, and steaming and mashing vegies does a lot to help to make the nutrients accessible to an animal that doesn't have 4 stomachs or symbiotic cellulose digesting gut bacteria.

As far as greyhounds choosing to eat plants goes - they will try many types of fruit, they love crushed steamed peas, carrots and brocolli, and I've had a greyhound stop and carefully pick ripe blackberries on the side of the road, and one of my Premier Fantasy bitches jumped up and picked a ripe mango of the tree the other day and took it back to her pen and started ripping the skin off it.

That last sentence sounds a quite interesting approach. At least logical.

Tom, I walk past a sultana grape block nearly every day.
While the grapes are ripe and full of juice the dogs show no interest in them.
When the grapes have been cut and are hanging out to dry, the dogs rip my arms out to get to them.
I've also had a retired grey who used to peel and eat avocados that had fallen from the trees.

Brother Michael, what's your view on couscous as source of roughage?

They can SURVIVE on kibble.......they certainly won't thrive.
They can survive on tinned dog food too....so why doesn't anybody race their dogs on it though? It's ultra processed crap......that's why.

Try racing a dog on just "complete food" kibble and see how you go.

FWIW, I tried it once (when I was young and stupid and believed the marketing hype). My dogs lost over 10 lengths instantly.

1. As long as the dog isn't wheat intolerant.
2. As long as the wheat that is used to make it isn't GM.(a whole new debate)
3. As long as the point about dogs digestive system is wrong, because to feed any grain or plant matter can't be assimilated by canines.

Mark,
I had a look back at your article after you posted that feeding veges caused complications with liver and kidneys...
She actually didn't say that...she said it caused more loading on the pancreas.

You do have me thinking though about "dissolving" and break down on a "cellular" level.
I can't find any scientific studies of that.
Can you tell me where you read that so I can have a look?
Cheers.

Is the meat we feed any better? The cows come from feedlots, they are fed GM grain, in fact they are fed all sorts of biological waste from food processing facilities. Is that meat any good?
Kangaroos are full of worms aren't they?

I've got one bitch who flatly refuses to eat roo meat but my other dogs love the stuff. She eats everything else I throw at her but will not touch the roo.

Maybe some dogs will thrive on premium kibble, others on meat and veg.

Then it has to be true.
Absolutely nothing to do with money.

Roo equals worms?
Not if you worm.

You are so right about beef...cesspool of questions.

Amazing how these dogs survive hey.

Good ole Dr. Harry...lovely man...strikes me as a man who would never take a commission.
Hate the hat though.

Quite honestly I think greyhound trainers are in the best position to determine what the optimum food for a racing dog is - just would like the benefit of the experience of trainers who have tried non-mainstream approaches, rather than have to reinvent the wheel myself using trial and error.

I don't think many trainers are very imaginative about feeding (other than trying to find a magic supplement), so I'd like to hear from trainers who have strayed off the well worn "meat and kibble" path.