Royal Canin Great Dane Adult review

This one finishes in our Average band while the middle of the adult dry shelf reaches the Good band, and the construction explains why. An unnamed fat is the biggest entry on the list, protein converts to 25.0% of dry matter where fat converts to 27.2%, and every animal entry on the label is generic. The protein and processing reading comes back Poor, as does transparency, with nutritional balance a step up at Average.

Two of the figures behind those readings are calculated, not printed. Moisture is undeclared, so the dry matter maths assumes the usual 8% for a kibble. The 416 kcal per 100g is a calculated figure too. A giant adult who burns through calories faster than most owners can supply them is exactly the dog pictured on the bag, and this is still a workable everyday food.

Ingredients, as declared: Animal fats, manioc (tapioca), dehydrated poultry proteins, wheat gluten*, maize flour, rice, hydrolysed animal proteins, minerals, vegetable fibres, fish oil, beet pulp, soya oil, yeasts products, yeasts (source of manno-oligosaccharides), glucosamine from fermentation, marigold meal, hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin). *L.I.P.: protein selected for its very high digestibility.

You rarely see animal fats in first place, and the reason is plain: putting condition on an enormous dog and keeping it there. Fat is declared at 25.0% and converts to 27.2% of dry matter, which is high for a kibble, while protein sits at 23.0% and converts to 25.0%. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 38.0% of dry matter, under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Manioc, sold in most kitchens as tapioca, is the second entry and the main starch. It is a clean carbohydrate that a dog handles easily and brings little else with it, so the nutrition has to come from the entries around it rather than from the starch.

Dehydrated poultry proteins are third and wheat gluten fourth. The digestibility note on this label is attached to the wheat gluten, not to the meat. Maize flour and rice follow, so the cereal side of the recipe is doing more than the third-place meat entry on its own would suggest.

Joint support comes from glucosamine produced by fermentation, which keeps shellfish out of the bag entirely, with chondroitin from hydrolysed cartilage behind it. Yeasts supply manno-oligosaccharides for the gut. Beet pulp and vegetable fibres take crude fibre to 2.4%, and fish oil and soya oil round out the fat blend. In print, the trace minerals carry doses: zinc at 145 mg, iron at 60 mg and selenium at 0.16 mg per kilo.

The naming is where it falls short. The single biggest entry, the animal fats, never says which animal, and neither do the poultry proteins nor the hydrolysed proteins. For a Dane who simply needs feeding well that is a paperwork problem rather than a dinner problem, though it does rule the food out as the basis of an elimination trial.

£5.54 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

A 15kg adult in moderate condition, on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), would take roughly 202 grams and £1.12 a day. A Dane is several times that dog, and the label asks 726 grams a day for a 60kg adult, so the sums that matter are the ones at the bottom of the feeding table.