Royal Canin Beagle Adult review

Our bands put the typical adult dry food at Good and this recipe a step below that line, in Average, with transparency reading Poor, protein and processing Average and nutritional balance Good. The reasons are visible on the front of the ingredients list rather than buried in the maths. Dehydrated poultry protein, animal fats and hydrolysed animal proteins do most of the work in the bowl, and each of them names a category, not an animal. Cereals take three of the first four places.

The analysis itself is steadier than the placing suggests. Protein converts to 29.3% of dry matter, fat to a deliberately restrained 13.0%, and estimated carbohydrate to 47.0%, within touching distance of the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. So the bowl is ordinary, with nothing alarming in it, and the score is largely a measure of what the bag chooses not to say. For an owner whose beagle is settled, well covered and holding a good shape on it, that is a thing to know rather than a thing to fear.

Ingredients, as declared: dehydrated poultry protein, maize, rice, wheat, hydrolysed animal proteins, animal fats, maize gluten, vegetable fibres, vegetable protein isolate*, beet pulp, fish oil, minerals, yeasts and parts thereof, psyllium husks and seeds, soya oil, fructo-oligo-saccharides, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), borage oil, hydrolysed crustaceans (source of glucosamine), marigold extract (source of lutein), hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin).

The first entry is dehydrated poultry protein, and that word dehydrated is worth a moment. Meat that arrives already dried keeps its full weight through the oven. What you read at the top is therefore near enough what the finished kibble contains. A fresh meat headline does not always work that way. The catch is the word poultry, a family name covering chicken, turkey, duck and goose. It gives the maker room to move between birds, and it leaves an owner tracking down a sensitivity with nothing specific to test.

Maize, rice and wheat take the next three places, with maize gluten a little further down. Rice is the gentlest of them. Maize digests perfectly well once it has been cooked properly. Wheat is the one most often blamed when a dog reacts to a cereal. Maize gluten lifts the protein figure, and a dog uses that plant protein less efficiently than the protein it takes from meat. Between them they explain why the protein reads well on paper without the recipe being especially meaty.

The digestive side is genuinely well put together, and it is the most thoughtful part of the label. Vegetable fibres and beet pulp bring the bulk that firms a stool up. Psyllium husks and seeds add soluble fibre. The friendly gut bacteria are fed by fructo-oligo-saccharides and hydrolysed yeast. Crude fibre lands at 4.0% of dry matter, a comfortable working level.

The oils earn their place. Marine omega 3s come from the fish oil, and soya oil sits behind it. Borage oil is unusually rich in gamma-linolenic acid. That is the fatty acid most often chosen where skin comfort is the aim. Marigold extract is on the list for lutein and tea extract is declared at 150 mg per kilo as a polyphenol source. Clinoptilolite is a natural mineral clay, added here at 10 g per kilo as a technological aid and not as nutrition.

Everything the pack adds by hand is printed with a dose. This is where the label does most for a careful reader. Zinc at 135 mg, manganese at 53 mg, iron at 41 mg, copper at 13 mg, iodine at 4.1 mg and selenium at 0.09 mg per kilo. Vitamin A is at 28500 IU and vitamin D3 at 800 IU. The joint pair does not get the same treatment. The list ends with hydrolysed crustaceans and hydrolysed cartilage, neither carrying a quantity. Read them as a nod towards joint support, not a measured helping.

£5.73 a kilo, sold as a single 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 235 grams a day. That assumes around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) and works out at £1.34 a day. At low activity the label's own table asks 171 grams for a 12kg beagle and 232 grams for an 18kg one. Where the two guides differ, let the waistline decide.