Hi Cindy T,
What I’m about to say is completely my opinion, but I’m not a big fan of Royal Canin as I find it to be overpriced with subpar ingredients that has a vitamin pack added to it to make it nutritionally balanced. It may have some science to back it’s formulas, but in truth, everyone and every living thing on this planet really was meant to eat real food as opposed to a nutritionally complete processed food. Whatever your dog is, I really don’t feel that there is enough difference between and Maltese and a Shi Tzu to need to feed a specific breed formula. I foster dogs from Kill Shelters that are of unknown origin (aka Heinz 57) as well as have several dogs small and large, some mixed and some purebred. I feed them all pretty much the same food and they all end up looking great and are very healthy. There are differences in feeding large breed puppies as opposed to small breed puppies, but overall, if you feed a quality food with some fresh food mixed in to an adult dog, there isn’t a great deal of difference. Small Breed formulas tend to be higher in protein and fat as opposed to Large Breed formulas in general. Many dog food formulas have all life stages.
I’m not opposed to grains, if they work for the dog, but I have a dog that reacts to grains so it’s easier for me to feed all the animals grain freee. I always add fresh food to all of my dogs meals. No living thing should be eating dry processed food for their entire life. I add canned food when feeding a kibble meal and make a fresh cooked or raw meal with a balanced premix for the other meal. My “senior” dogs are lively and playful and walk a mile or so daily. They have minimal health problems, and only due to torn ccls (that’s a whole other discussion).
I’m not personally a fan of skept vet either, but ultimately, the choice is yours.
