Royal Canin Cocker Puppy review

Our band for this food is Average, a step under the Good band the typical puppy dry food holds. Transparency reads Poor and protein and processing Average, while nutritional balance comes back Excellent. The analysis is the better half of the story, with protein at the top of the range and moisture actually printed. Most of the reading is made on the ingredient list, and this one puts cereal in six different forms behind a meat entry that names no bird.

That said, this is a complete food with a properly dosed additive panel and a functional tail Royal Canin has not skimped on. A Cocker pup raised on it will not be short of anything the label is obliged to provide. Our reading rewards recipes that lead with named meat and print the figures behind it, and this is the ground the label chooses not to contest.

Ingredients, as declared: dehydrated poultry protein, maize, animal fats, vegetable protein isolate*, beet pulp, wheat, wheat flour, rice, maize gluten, hydrolysed animal proteins, maize flour, fish oil, minerals, soya oil, yeasts and parts thereof, fructo-oligo-saccharides (0.34%), psyllium husks and seeds, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), yeasts extracts (source of betaglucans), borage oil (0.1%), marigold extract (source of lutein), hydrolysed crustaceans (source of glucosamine), hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin).

The only meat on the list is dehydrated poultry protein, right at the head of it. Poultry is a group name, and the bird behind it can change between production runs: chicken, turkey, duck or goose. With no percentage attached, how much of the bag it fills is anyone's guess. Hydrolysed animal proteins further down are equally unspecific, and animal fats keep the pattern going.

The cereal side is the busiest part of the recipe. Maize sits second, then wheat, wheat flour, rice, maize flour and maize gluten follow at intervals. Maize gluten is worth singling out. It is a milling by-product, there to raise the protein figure. Plant protein of that kind is harder for a puppy to use than the equivalent from meat. That is part of why a headline of 32.0% protein needs reading alongside the list that produced it.

Moisture at 9.0% is a small point that matters more than it looks. Royal Canin prints it here and not on its sibling recipes, so every dry matter figure on this page is worked from a declared number. Protein reads 35.2%, fat 19.8% and carbohydrate an estimated 34.5%, the last of those sitting under the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food.

The support ingredients are the strongest part of the label. Psyllium husks and seeds carry the soluble fibre, with beet pulp for bulk. Fructo-oligo-saccharides carry a figure at 0.34%, and hydrolysed yeast and yeast extracts bring manno-oligo-saccharides and betaglucans. Borage oil at 0.1% is rich in gamma-linolenic acid, a sensible thing to have on a breed carrying that much coat.

Glucosamine and chondroitin come from hydrolysed crustaceans and hydrolysed cartilage, named at source rather than listed as bare compounds, though neither carries a dose. The vitamin and trace mineral panel does carry its doses in full: vitamin A at 29500 IU, vitamin D3 at 800 IU and vitamin E at 590 mg per kilo. Zinc is at 96 mg, manganese at 46 mg, iron at 35 mg, copper at 11 mg, iodine at 3.5 mg and selenium at 0.06 mg.

For all that detail, calcium never appears. A Cocker finishes medium sized, not large, so getting it slightly wrong matters less. A growth food that prints six analytical lines and leaves out the one governing bone development is still holding back the figure an owner would check first.

£8.03 a kilo, sold in a 3kg bag.

The guide on the pack works towards a 12 kg adult, and the daily amount shifts more than once across the first year. Treat the chart as a moving target and re-read it as your pup gains, never settling on a single figure.