Royal Canin Chihuahua Puppy review

This food sits below the middle of the puppy dry shelf, in our Average band, a step under the Good band the typical puppy kibble reaches. Nutritional balance comes out Good, helped by the short list and a declared energy figure, while transparency reads Poor.

Transparency is where the reasoning lies. An unnamed poultry protein at the front, unnamed animal fats behind it and no inclusion percentage anywhere means an owner is asked to take the meat content on trust. Trust in Royal Canin is not hard to come by, and a Chihuahua pup fed this will not go short, but our reading is of what the pack proves rather than what the maker knows.

Ingredients, as declared: dehydrated poultry protein, rice, animal fats, maize, vegetable protein isolate*, beet pulp, hydrolysed animal proteins, soya oil, fish oil, vegetable fibres, minerals, fructo-oligo-saccharides, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), yeasts extracts (source of betaglucans), marigold extract (source of lutein).

This is the tidiest list in the breed puppy range. Dehydrated poultry protein, rice, animal fats, maize, a vegetable protein isolate and beet pulp cover the substance of it, and the functional entries follow. Nothing here is doing damage, but nothing here is naming an animal either, and poultry can mean chicken one month and turkey the next without the wording moving.

Fat at 20.0%, converting to 21.7% of dry matter, is high for a growth kibble and there is a good reason for it on this particular bag. A Chihuahua pup has a stomach the size of a walnut and an energy demand that does not scale down with it, so the food has to work harder per gram. That is what the 405 kcal per 100g is for, against 376 for the typical puppy dry food.

Rice and maize take the starch, with beet pulp and vegetable fibres giving the gut something to work with. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 35.7% of dry matter, comfortably under the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food. The energy is coming from fat, not from a bigger cereal share.

Soya oil and fish oil handle the essential fats between them. For the gut there are fructo-oligo-saccharides. Hydrolysed yeast brings manno-oligo-saccharides and yeast extracts bring betaglucans. Marigold extract closes the list as a source of lutein.

The added panel is printed in full: vitamin A at 28000 IU, vitamin D3 at 800 IU and vitamin E at 570 mg per kilo. Zinc comes in at 107 mg, manganese at 51 mg, iron at 39 mg, copper at 12 mg, iodine at 3.9 mg and selenium at 0.08 mg. Clinoptilolite at 10 g per kilo and yucca extract at 125 mg finish it off.

The analysis gives protein at 30.0%, fat at 20.0%, fibre at 2.0% and ash at 7.2%, and there it stops. No moisture is printed, so the dry matter column is built on an assumed 8%, and no calcium is printed either. A toy breed carries less risk from a calcium slip than a giant one does, but a growth food that leaves the figure off is asking to be taken on faith.

£9.16 a kilo, in a single 1.5kg bag.

A Chihuahua pup's daily ration is small enough that a few grams either way genuinely counts. Use scales, not a scoop, and step the amount up and back down as the months pass.