Royal Canin German Shepherd Puppy review

Our band here is Average, and this is one of the plainer examples of why. Transparency reads Poor, with protein and processing at Average and nutritional balance at Good. On a food sold for a breed that grows fast and finishes large, the absence of a calcium line is the single biggest gap. Alongside it sit unnamed meats, no inclusion percentages and an analysis that stops short of moisture.

There is real formulation work in the bag all the same. The gut supports are named at source and two of them carry figures, and the joint pair is specified rather than implied. The vitamin and trace mineral panel is dosed throughout, and Royal Canin's feeding guide is among the more detailed on the shelf. Our reading is of what the label proves, and a Shepherd owner is asked to take most of this one on trust.

Ingredients, as declared: dehydrated poultry protein, rice, vegetable protein isolate*, wheat flour, maize flour, animal fats, hydrolysed animal proteins, beet pulp, vegetable fibres, fish oil, minerals, soya oil, fructo-oligo-saccharides (0.34%), psyllium husks and seeds, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides: 0.05%), hydrolysed crustaceans (source of glucosamine), yeasts extracts (source of betaglucans), marigold extract (source of lutein), hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin).

Dehydrated poultry protein leads and no bird is named behind it. Chicken, turkey, duck and goose all sit under that one word, in any combination. The recipe can shift between production runs and the wording stays put, and with no percentage attached there is nothing to weigh the meat share against. Animal fats and hydrolysed animal proteins follow the same style further down the list.

A vegetable protein isolate in third place is worth noticing on a growth food. It means part of the 30.0% protein headline, converting to 32.6% of dry matter, is coming from a plant concentrate rather than from meat. Plant protein does not bring the same amino acid balance a growing dog draws on. Rice above it and wheat flour and maize flour below take the starch.

Calcium is where this label most needs to speak and does not. A German Shepherd puppy puts on frame quickly and keeps going for the better part of a year, and the calcium level in the food is the lever that decides how orderly that process is. The analysis prints four lines and calcium is not among them, so nothing about large breed rearing can be checked here. Ash at 7.3% shows a normal total mineral load and tells you nothing about the calcium inside it.

The gut package is the best-specified part of the recipe. Fructo-oligo-saccharides carry a figure at 0.34% and manno-oligo-saccharides at 0.05%, both from named sources, with psyllium husks and seeds bringing soluble fibre and beet pulp and vegetable fibres adding bulk. Betaglucans come from yeast extracts and lutein from marigold extract.

Joint support arrives as hydrolysed crustaceans for glucosamine and hydrolysed cartilage for chondroitin, named at source though without doses attached. Fish oil and soya oil handle the essential fats, which puts fish and soya into the allergen picture alongside the wheat and maize.

The dosed panel is complete: vitamin A at 30500 IU, vitamin D3 at 800 IU and vitamin E at 620 mg per kilo. Then zinc at 128 mg, manganese at 49 mg, iron at 38 mg, copper at 12 mg, iodine at 3.8 mg and selenium at 0.08 mg. Clinoptilolite at 10 g and yucca extract at 125 mg finish the list. It is a thorough panel on a label that stays quiet about almost everything above it.

£5.73 a kilo, sold in 3kg and 12kg bags.

Royal Canin's chart works towards a 35 kg adult, and a Shepherd pup's daily amount changes more across growth than almost any other breed's. Set the ration by the age band your pup is in now and move it on as they do.