Royal Canin Bichon Frise Adult review

The typical adult dry food lives in our Good band; this recipe settles a level under it, in Average. What caused that is worth separating from what did not. Nutritional balance reads Good, which is the better half of this label, because the protein and the fat land where an adult dog needs them.

The ground is lost on transparency, which reads Poor. Not one species is named across the poultry, the animal fats and the hydrolysed animal proteins. Wheat gluten and maize gluten add protein too, and a dog uses that less efficiently than protein from meat. Set against that, protein reads 31.9% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate 42.5%, comfortably under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Those are better figures than the placing might lead you to expect.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry, rice, maize, wheat, wheat gluten*, animal fats, maize gluten, hydrolysed animal proteins, minerals (including pentasodium triphosphate (0.35%)), soya oil, chicory pulp, fish oil, yeasts products, fructo-oligosaccharides, psyllium husks and seeds, borage oil (0.1%), glucosamine from fermentation, marigold meal, hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin). *L.I.P.: protein selected for its very high digestibility.

Dehydrated poultry opens the recipe, dried before it goes anywhere near the mixer. That means the weight you read on the list is much the same weight the kibble ends up with. Any domestic bird can be called poultry. That is convenient for the maker, and less convenient for an owner working out which meat their dog objects to. What it does deliver is a highly palatable, well digested protein, and the panel shows it at 29.0% as fed.

Rice, maize and wheat carry the starch, and wheat gluten follows them with an asterisk that explains itself in the small print as protein chosen for very high digestibility. That claim covers how readily the protein is absorbed. Where it comes from is wheat. Maize gluten sits a little further down doing similar work. Both are real protein sources; neither is meat.

The dental thinking is the most distinctive part of this label. Pentasodium triphosphate is declared inside the minerals at 0.35%, and it works by tying up the calcium in saliva so there is less of it available to turn soft plaque into hard tartar. Paired with a kibble a small dog has to bite rather than swallow whole, it is a sensible touch on a food written for a breed whose teeth get a lot of attention.

Coat and gut share the rest of the list. The omega fats come from fish oil and soya oil, with borage oil at 0.1% adding gamma-linolenic acid. Skin leans hardest on zinc, and zinc is declared at 141 mg per kilo. Inulin comes in with the chicory pulp, a prebiotic fibre the gut bacteria live on. Fructo-oligosaccharides and psyllium husks and seeds sit behind it. Crude fibre is on the light side at 1.8% of dry matter. The recipe is built for easy digestion, not for bulk.

Joint support arrives quietly at the end. Glucosamine from fermentation is the interesting one, since the usual route to glucosamine runs through crustacean shells and this one does not, which makes the recipe workable for a dog kept away from shellfish. Hydrolysed cartilage supplies chondroitin beside it. Neither comes with a declared quantity. Take them as a gesture towards ageing joints, not as a dose you can measure. Clinoptilolite, a natural mineral clay, is added at 5 g per kilo as a technological aid, and marigold meal is there for lutein.

£10.33 a kilo, and 1.5kg is the only pack size offered.

Our standard guide assumes a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eating about 230 grams a day on around 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the usual maintenance estimate), which comes to £2.38 a day. For a dog the size this bag names, the label's own table is the more useful one: 70 grams a day at 4kg, rising to 118 grams at 8kg.