Royal Canin German Shepherd Adult review

Our scoring places this in the Average band while the shelf median for adult dry food rests a tier higher in the Good band. Nutritional balance reads Average, built on protein converting to 26.1% of dry matter, fat to 20.7% and estimated carbohydrate to 41.8%, comfortably under the 46.2% typical figure.

What pulls the total down is the protein and processing side and transparency, both reading Poor. A concentrated plant protein sits near the top of the list, and the animal entries name nothing specific. Moisture is left off the declaration, so the dry matter maths assumes the usual 8% for a kibble. For a shepherd who has eaten this happily for years, none of that is a reason to change; it is a reason to know what the label is and is not telling you.

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

Rice opens the list with dehydrated poultry protein directly behind it, so meat is doing real work near the top and not halfway down. The meat here is dehydrated, so its water is long gone and an entry high on the list stays high once the kibble is baked.

A vegetable protein isolate takes fourth place, a concentrated plant source that pushes the analysis up without adding meat, and maize flour comes just after it. Neither is a problem in itself, though together they mean the headline protein is shared between the bird and the plants.

There is no wheat anywhere on this list, which is not a given on a cereal-based kibble and is genuinely useful if wheat is the grain you steer around. Rice and maize carry the starch instead.

The fat blend is more varied than most. Animal fats do the bulk of the work, with soya oil, fish oil and copra oil behind them. The marine omega 3 source is fish oil, and copra oil, pressed from coconut, is a quick-burning fat.

The smaller entries are chosen with a big adult dog in mind. Glucosamine is extracted from crustacean shells and chondroitin from cartilage, hydrolysed yeast supplies manno-oligo-saccharides for the gut, marigold extract supplies lutein, and beet pulp with vegetable fibres takes crude fibre to 4.0%. In print, the trace minerals carry doses: 145 mg of zinc, 51 mg of iron and 0.11 mg of selenium per kilo, with a tea extract at 150 mg bringing polyphenols.

The one recurring weakness is that nothing animal is named. Poultry could be any domestic bird. The fats and the hydrolysed proteins could come from any species at all. Most dogs will never care. The question only goes live when you need to know what your dog reacts to, and this label cannot help with that.

£6.14 a kilo, sold in an 11kg bag.

Lined up against a 15kg adult in moderate condition, which needs around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), that is about 218 grams and £1.34 a day. A 30kg shepherd is the real target here, and for one at low activity the label asks 318 grams a day. Scale from there, and let the ribs do the judging.