Royal Canin Golden Retriever Puppy review

We put this one in the Average band, a rung under the Good band a typical puppy dry food occupies. The distance comes from construction rather than from anything alarming: the meat is named by category, a vegetable protein isolate carries part of the protein load, and wheat sits high on the list. Nutritional balance reads Good, protein and processing reads Average and transparency reads Poor.

Breed-specific recipes are a real idea, and plenty of owners have raised contented retrievers on this bag. Our reading grades the label in front of us, which on protein at 31.9% of dry matter and carbohydrate at 38.3% is unremarkable rather than troubling.

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

Dehydrated poultry protein at the front is dried meat, so what it contributes to the finished kibble is close to its declared share. Poultry as a term covers any farmed bird. Looser still are the hydrolysed animal proteins further down. Investigating a suspected food sensitivity on this list is awkward work.

Rice and maize carry the base with wheat behind them, and vegetable protein isolate sits fourth. That last one is concentrated plant protein with no plant named. Keep it in mind when you look at protein converting to 31.9% of dry matter, because a share of that figure comes from the vegetable side and not from the bird.

Fibre is the number that stands out. Declared at 3.7% and converting to 4.1% of dry matter, it runs higher than most growth kibbles, carried by vegetable fibres, beet pulp and psyllium husks. Retriever pups are famously enthusiastic at the bowl, and a meal that feels fuller is a sensible answer to that.

Some thought has gone into the closing entries. Borage oil at 0.1% is among the better sources of gamma-linolenic acid and turns up in coat-focused recipes for good reason, marigold extract brings lutein, and yeast extracts supply betaglucans. Glucosamine arrives from hydrolysed crustaceans and chondroitin from hydrolysed cartilage, neither with a dose printed beside it.

Fish oil sits mid-list as the omega 3 source, and fructo-oligo-saccharides at 0.34% pair with a hydrolysed yeast source of manno-oligo-saccharides on the digestive side. Calcium gets no number anywhere on this label. A large breed puppy owner looks for that figure first, and without it no claim about bone growth stands.

The analysis is otherwise fully declared, protein at 29.0%, fat at 16.0%, fibre at 3.7%, ash at 7.4% and moisture at 9.0%, so the dry matter column rests on printed numbers. Energy is the exception, since the label carries none and the 360 kcal per 100g figure is our estimate. The added panel is dosed generously, with vitamin A at 26500 IU, vitamin E at 780 mg and zinc at 130 mg per kg.

£5.67 a kilo, sold in 3kg and 12kg bags.

The portion that suits a pup at the start of growth is not the one that suits them later, so no steady daily figure holds for a growing retriever. Start from the bag's feeding chart, then let your pup's waistline make the final call.