Royal Canin VS Blue Buffalo
 

My yorkie Chloe is now 11 months old, and just within the last 2 months we have added another yorkie, Winston to our family. We have given both puppies Royal Canin since we had brought them into our home. They seem to like it well enough, but is it healthy enough for them? I'm just wondering what anybody's opinion on Royal Canin vs Blue Buffalo is. If we do switch them over, it will be very gradual over a few weeks time. Also, what is the easiest way to make sure my baby yorkie doesn't eat my older yorkie's food and vice-versa, considering she will be on adult food and he will be on puppy food? Any comments or help are appreciated!

Beyond separating them,not much you can do to keep them from eating the other's food.

As far as kibbles, both those foods are about equal.

If you want something with higher protein instead of higher carb, which I think is more species appropriate - I'd go with feeding frozen raw or freeze dried raw like Primal or Natures Variety. Or for kibbles: Natures Logic, Natures Variety, Solid Gold, Wellness Core, Orijen/Acana...

Wyliesmom can you or someone suggest a better type of food for my girl?? I have used Royal Canine since I have had her, a year now.I buy the yorkie bag. I want to feed her what is best for her other than dried raw food.
I appreciate all suggestions!

I have fed all my dogs Royal Canin for over 35 years, since the late '70s....their lines have expanded and they now address almost any health issue a dog develops. My dogs are healthy, my breeders as well as my pets, in tip top shape, and they love the food and tolerate it well. It has certainly met all their nutritional requirements, and I have never had the issues of dogs having to switch and swap dozens of foods, trying to find something else they will eat.....,this food is developed for nutritional requirements for dogs at every stage of their life, that more than meets all their nutritional requirements, including the nutritional needs for breeding dogs, growing puppies, and aging seniors.

Yorkiemom THAT is what I was hoping to hear from you. Thank you so much.

Is your kiddo doing well on it? If yes, maybe you just want to keep feeding her this...?

If not, or if you desire a food which is grain free (many dogs do very poorly with all the grains in RC and other foods) - then I'd go with one of the other foods I named. Personally, I do think grain free or very low grain foods are more species appropriate for canines, who are carnivores.

Oh yes Wylies mom she does real well. So far anyway! LOL Thank you .

Our Bella started on Royal Canin, and she did well on it. We switched her over to Blue Buffalo because we *thought* it was a better quality food. She did well on that too, but when we bought a bag that had NO life source bits in it, we realized that Blue Buffalo might have some quality control issues. Then I read about a person who bought a bag of Blue Buffalo that contained nothing but life source bits, and their dog was poisoned by too many vitamins and minerals. Since then, we switched Bella to Wellness Core Grain Free Small Breed, and she is doing well on that. I'm blessed to have a dog that doesn't seem to have any food allergies and tolerates all of the food switching we did. We plan to keep her on Wellness Core Grain Free as long as she is doing well on it. If you can, find a food that all of your dogs do well on (so they don't try to steal each others food) and stick with it.

Edit: I'm sure that Royal Canin is a perfectly good food, and Bella would have been okay had we switched back to it. It's just that people here were highly recommending Wellness Core Grain Free that we switched to Wellness and didn't go back to Royal Canin.

I feed Acana. It's a very quality food.

Blue buffalo has been known to make dogs ill. I would steer well clear of it.

There are other brands that are better. Acana, earthborn holistic, wellness CORE- all are good.

Royal canin is not something I would feed to my dogs. Too many grains.

We could check with the dentist! ;)

I'll add Fromms Four Star Nutritionals to the list. It's at least worth looking into to see for yourself. Since availability is an issue, I also recommend chewy.com.
Dog Food & Treats - fromms No Corn No Wheat No Soy Dry Food for All Stages - Free Shipping at Chewy.com

If you stick with RC, run from the yorkie specific formula. Find out and use the formula Yorkiemom uses....

I home cook, but have used RC. My dogs do well on it. I used the Yorkie formula and the mini. The mini is cheaper and my dogs liked it.

:thumbup::thumbup:
I just use the adult kibble, mini formula.....there is a picture of a Jack Russell Terrier on the front....I think that is what that adorable looking little dog is! Some of my dogs liked the yorkie specific formula, some were not so quick to finish their meal, but they all love the mini adult, so for the sake of "uncomplicate life" theory, I feed them all the same formula, the mini adult!

I wish they would come out with a formula that had flea killer in it! (Just kidding!!!)

Yorkiemom it says that is for 9-22 lbs and my girl is 7. Will that matter?
Also since it is the same brand do you think there would be a large change over for her like if it was another food type?

I recall we went around on this a year or so ago, THEN, found a difference between the formulas. RC did something weird with the yorkie formula, protein source??? Fun times! LOL

dog food
 

My boys eat wellness . I tried blue buffalo and they had runny stools. I don't like what I read about blue buffalo. I would go to wellness or royal canine. Check the ingredients and dog food advisor.

The weight makes no difference....my "pets" are all under 5 lbs and all my breeders are 6 lbs and larger....if you had some tinies....I have 3 itty bitty babies I will not sell....I give them the XSmall Adult, for their tiny little mouths.....when I switched them all over to the Mini Adult from the specific formula for Yorkies, I split it half and half and gradually for several days, just decreased the Yorkie formula, over to the mini adult.....had no issues of any kind, and everyone is happy and healthy and springing around with energy and adventurous excitement, getting into everything! My seniors have slowed down a little, some a lot, but they have always been healthy with no issues whatsoever.......

Dog food adviser is a dentist....he has admitted in writing his recommendations/grading system, relies on what the companies say about their own product!!

What is the formula you would use? I have a 10 month old and a 3 month old. We've had our puppies on the yorkie formula, but is there a better one? And how would you go about trying to make sure the younger one doesn't go for an adult formula since he is just a puppy still or my 10 month going for the puppy food?

I recommend to all my new owners that for the sake of simple, keep them on the puppy formula until they are a year old, then switch over to mini adult. It is very important that youngster is getting all the necessary building blocks that are in the puppy blend....when all these kiddos were young until age 2-3 years old, I fed them all the puppy blend.....that was recommended to me by too many reputable breeders to just ignore, so I did that. When they reached 3 years old, I switched over to the mini adult.... My dogs have always loved the formula with the JR Terrier on it....I have too many dogs to be catering to different blends of the same brand....as long as there are no health issues that would require me to branch off into medical issue specific blends, they all get the Mini Adult that has the JR Terrier on it....then my 16 year old seniors enjoy the canned RC....Poor babies, I think they just get tired of crunching hard kibble on those aging teeth....and of course, I have some with very few teeth left so we try to accomodate them as well.....

My 10 month is around 5 lbs and my 3 month is just under 2 lbs, so would the Royal Canin X-Small puppy food be what I should feed them both, or should I go with the Royal Canin Mini puppy? And is the Yorkshire Terrier breed specific formula bad for them or just not as good as the normal puppy blend?

It isnt bad for them....mine just like the mini puppy blend better.....and it was easier for me to give everyone the same formula than dividing dogs into 3-4 groups and feeding which blend each preferred....they ALL like the mini adult, so that is what I fed them! The two blends you have mentioned I think differ from each other by the size of the kibble. I dont think of any of the blends/formulas as "bad" for them....when they first came out here in the States back in '70's, I dont remember the formulas they offered way back then....seems I remember it was all breed specific dog food....so I was feeding the Yorkshire Terrier blend, and my dogs were doing super on it and they liked it. They have since added many more formulas, with different compositions and ingredients and breed specific blends, as well as age specific compositions. None of their food is bad....just aimed at breed and age requirements. If they like the breed specific formula, go with that.....if you buy a bag and they dont like it, I think PetCo and some others as well, will let you return the bag....if they dont like the breed specific, then the mini puppy formula works great. I always include a bag of the Yorkie puppy when I send a baby home.....that is what they are on when they go to new homes.

Awesome! Thanks for all the information and help! I really appreciate it! Just want my babies to be healthy and enjoy their food!

Is RC. Puppy Yorker food a good choice to use?

Scottie now eats grain-free Orijen kibble (and loves it, has very nice silky hair, and no more itchy dry skin), which is all grain-free and the primary ingredients are from whole-prey.

He used to eat grain-free Acana, which is less rich in protein. Scottie stopped eating it for some reason, I think because it's not very tasty due to the meat being "meat meal". A definition of "meat meal" from dogfoodadvisor.com: "Meat meal is a dried end-product of the cooking process known as rendering. Rendering is a lot like making stew — except that this stew is intentionally over-cooked."

And prior, he ate grain-free Fromm, which also produces high quality dog kibble, but after he got sick (unsure of the actual reason at the time) for a couple weeks, the vet suggested changing the dog food brand.

If you have a pup under 8-12 months of age...you can safely feed the puppy blend until baby is a year old....it does absolutely no harm and the pups benefit greatly from the puppy formula.