Royal Canin Boxer Adult review

This recipe gets closer to the middle of the field than its placing on its own suggests. The typical adult dry food occupies our Good band and this one finishes a step under it, in our Average band. Fat does much of that work: at 21.7% of dry matter it lifts the energy density well clear of a typical dry food. Estimated carbohydrate falls to 40.8%, under the 46.2% typical for the category.

The reason for the placing is right at the start of the ingredients. The recipe opens with rice, not meat, and animal fats follow. The animal entries that matter most are described by category, never by species. For an owner feeding a boxer that trains, works or simply never stops, none of that reads as a warning. It is the trade this recipe makes, and it makes it deliberately.

Ingredients, as declared: rice, animal fats, dehydrated poultry protein, maize, vegetable protein isolate*, dehydrated pork protein, hydrolysed animal proteins, vegetable fibres, beet pulp, minerals, soya oil, fish oil, copra oil, dehydrated tomato, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), hydrolysed crustaceans (source of glucosamine), marigold extract (source of lutein), hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin).

Rice comes first and animal fats second, which is an unusual order and tells you what the recipe is for. Fat carries more than twice the energy of starch or protein by weight. Putting it that high is how a food reaches 404 kcal per 100g and keeps a hard-working dog in condition on a sensible bowl. The reservation is the wording: animal fats names no species, so the fat could come from one animal or several, and it can change between production runs without a word altering on the pack.

Two dried meats follow. Dehydrated poultry protein is third and dehydrated pork protein a few lines below it, both already dried so their protein arrives intact rather than mostly as water. Pork is comparatively rare in kibble, and that makes it useful when the usual birds have lost their appeal. Here it plays a supporting part, not a leading one. Hydrolysed animal proteins sit alongside them, broken down small and there largely to make the bowl taste of something.

What marks this recipe out from its stablemates is L-carnitine, declared at 830 mg per kilo. The body uses carnitine, an amino acid, to shuttle fat into cells to be burned for energy. It is a natural companion to a recipe with this much fat in it, and it is usually chosen where the aim is a lean, muscular dog. Declaring it with a figure is the useful part.

The plant side is short and purposeful. Vegetable fibres and beet pulp give the stools something to hold onto, and hydrolysed yeast supplies manno-oligo-saccharides for the gut. Dehydrated tomato brings antioxidants, and tea extract is declared at 150 mg per kilo as a source of polyphenols. Copra oil, pressed from coconut, joins the soya oil and fish oil in the fat blend and is an unusual sight on a dog food list. Crude fibre lands at 2.7% of dry matter, on the light side, which suits a food built to be digested rather than to fill.

The added nutrition is properly printed: zinc at 141 mg, manganese at 66 mg, iron at 51 mg, copper at 15 mg, iodine at 5.1 mg and selenium at 0.11 mg per kilo. Vitamin A is at 27500 IU and vitamin D3 at 700 IU. Clinoptilolite, a natural mineral clay, is included at 10 g per kilo as a technological additive. The joint entries are the exception to all that precision. The list closes with hydrolysed crustaceans for glucosamine and hydrolysed cartilage for chondroitin, neither with a quantity beside it. Take them as a supportive touch, not a measured helping.

£5.73 a kilo, sold as a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 208 grams a day. That assumes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) and works out at £1.19 a day. Most boxers are a good deal heavier than that, and the label's own table is the better starting point for the breed. It asks 255 grams a day at 24kg, rising to 360 grams at 38kg for a dog at low activity.