The Best Food for Your Yorkie: Part 3

Posted on By Sarah
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This is the third in our multi-part series on the best food for your Yorkie. We hope to give you enough information to make an informed choice for yourself, and we hope that the information we provide will lead you to look carefully at the choice you make when it comes to your Yorkie’s food.

As with our last review, we will be looking at 5 quality foods for your Yorkie. We will be reviewing each food in terms of kibble size, ingredients and nutrition, cost, recall information, ownership, and, of course, a taste test. In this review we are looking at (in alphabetical order):

Kibble Size

Each of these foods has a good kibble size for Yorkies. The Purina ProPlan has the smallest kibble. The Three Dog Bakery pieces were the biggest. The Blue Buffalo has two different sized pieces. We are providing pictures for your reference, with a piece of kibble on a quarter so you can gauge the size of the pieces for your Yorkie.

Blue Buffalo – Freedom Grain-Free Chicken Small Breed

Eukanuba
Yorkshire Terrier Adult

Purina Pro Plan – Focus Adult Toy Breed Formula

Royal Canin
Yorkshire Terrier 28

Three Dog Bakery – Bake to Nature Oven-Baked Chicken

Ingredients & Nutrition

The best way to compare the ingredients and nutrition is with the chart provided below.

Here are a few highlights for you that we found the most interesting.

All of these foods use a meat meal (Chicken meal, for example, is a rendered whole chicken, minus feathers, head, feet, and entrails ground up. Chicken by-product meal on the other hand is a rendered whole chicken minus feathers, ground up).

The Blue Buffalo is grain free with no corn, wheat, or soy.

The Three Dog Bakery is wheat, corn, and soy free.

The Pro Plan has the highest protein at 30% and the Three Dog Bakery has the lowest at 22%. The Three Dog Bakery also has the lowest fat content at 10% and the Eukanuba has the highest at 18%.

Blue Buffalo – Freedom Small Breed
 Eukanuba Yorkshire
 Pro Plan Toy Breed
 Royal Canin Yorkshire Three Dog Bakery, Bake to Nature
First Ingredient Deboned chicken
 Chicken Chicken Chicken meal Chicken
Second Ingredient Chicken meal
 Chicken by-product meal Brewers rice Brown rice Chicken meal
Crude Protein (Min) 26% 28% 30% 28% 22%
Crude Fat (Min) 15% 18% 17% 16.5% 10%
Calories kcal/kg 3,476 397.38 kcal/CUP (kcal/kg unavailable) 4,167 4,040 3,400
Serving size per day for smallest weight category 1/4 – 1/2 cup
 1/4 – 1/2 cup 1/2 – 2/3 cup 1/3 – 3/4 cup 1/4 – 1/2 cup

Cost

Cost is always a consideration, especially if you have more than one Yorkie. For these foods, the prices have a slight range – the cheapest being the Three Dog Bakery at $2.75 per pound and the most expensive being the Royal Canin at $3.76 per pound. We have been using prices at K9cuisine.com for prices, but none of these foods are available on their site, so we are using prices from PetSmart.com, except the Three Dog Bakery, which is not sold at PetSmart.com. We divided the price into the pounds of the smallest bag available to get a cost per pound. Here are the per pound prices from lowest to highest for our current 5 foods.

  • Three Dog Bakery – $2.75 / lb on their website
  • Purina – $2.80 / lb
  • Blue Buffalo – $2.91 / lb
  • Eukanuba – $3.07 / lb
  • Royal Canin – $3.75 / lb

Taste Test

Catherine’s rankings:

1. Royal Canin
2. Three Dog Bakery
3. Blue Buffalo
4. Purina Pro Plan
5. Euknuba

For the first time in our series, Catherine ate all of the test samples we set out for her. The ProPlan and Euknuba were definitely her least favorite (always ate those two last), the Royal Canin was definitely her favorite (always ate that first), and she went back and forth on the Three Dog Bakery and the Blue Buffalo, though in more trials she chose the Three Dog Bakery first. Interesting side note, my cat jumped in and tried to battle Catherine for the Blue Buffalo. I had to give Lexi (the cat) her own pile so she wouldn’t spoil the test.

Ownership

  • Blue Buffalo is a privately owned company.
  • Eukanuba is owned by Proctor and Gamble.
  • Purina is owned by Nestlé.
  • Royal Canin is owned by Mars.
  • Three Dog Bakery is a privately owned company.

Recalls

The recall information I have reviewed goes back to 2009.

  • Blue Buffalo – voluntary recall October 8, 2010 for high levels of Vitamin D.
  • Eukanuba – voluntary recall July 30, 2010 for possible salmonella contamination.
  • Purina – multiple limited recalls over the years of various Purina foods, both dog and cat and other animal foods.
  • Royal Canin – we found no recalls after 2009 but a few prior to 2009 involving Royal Canin Veterinary Diet from 2006 and 2007.
  • Three Dog Bakery – no recalls, ever.

Our Choice

Based on everything, this time we have two favorites, and they are the Blue Buffalo and Three Dog Bakery. For the Blue Buffalo, Catherine likes it and we like that its grain free with no artificial anything. We also like that the company is privately owned. For the Three Dog Bakery, we like that it is baked, Catherine likes it, it’s wheat and corn free with no artificial anything, and we like that the company is privately owned. We also like that Three Dog Bakery is a trusted company with no recalls on their foods.


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