Royal Canin Labrador Retriever Adult review

Our reading lands this in the Average band, one step under the Good band where the middle of the adult dry shelf sits. The analysis panel is not the reason. Protein converts to 33.0% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 41.2%, against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. That is a perfectly respectable pair of figures. The gap opens on the ingredients list, where maize comes first, wheat and maize gluten both appear, and several working entries name no animal at all. Read as a breed food for a Labrador who holds condition on it, this does exactly what it was built to do. Read as a label, it asks you to take a fair amount on trust.

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

Maize opens the list with rice behind it, so the starch side of this kibble is cereal from the very top. The choice is deliberate, because maize and rice both cook down into a firm, consistent kibble, and rice in particular sits easily with most dogs. By weight, the first thing in the bag is not meat.

The animal protein that follows is better identified than the rest of this maker's adult shelf usually manages. Dehydrated beef and pork protein comes ahead of dehydrated poultry protein, and both beef and pork are digestible, palatable meats that plenty of dogs rarely meet. Poultry stays a family and never narrows to a bird, so any of chicken, turkey, duck and goose could be in there. Further down, the animal fats name nothing at all, and the hydrolysed animal proteins name nothing either. Between them the finished protein lands at 33.0% of dry matter, solid for a kibble.

Halfway down the list come maize gluten and wheat, and part of what the maize gluten does there is lift protein without meat. Maize milling produces it as a by-product, and its protein is harder for a dog to put to use than the equivalent from an animal. Wheat, meanwhile, is the cereal named most often in a dog with an intolerance. Neither troubles the majority of dogs, and both are worth spotting if yours is the exception.

Fibre gets more attention here than in a general adult food, and for a breed this hungry it earns the space. Vegetable fibres, beet pulp, psyllium husks and fructo-oligo-saccharides all appear, taking crude fibre to 3.8% and giving the stomach something to work on between meals. Beet pulp is the workhorse behind stool quality, psyllium is a soluble fibre that holds water in the gut, and the fructo-oligo-saccharides are there to feed a dog's own gut bacteria.

The breed-specific touches are the last entries on the list. Hydrolysed crustaceans supply glucosamine and hydrolysed cartilage supplies chondroitin, the pairing usually reached for when a heavy, enthusiastic dog starts to feel their joints. Marigold extract brings lutein, an antioxidant that supports the eye. Borage oil is declared at 0.1%, a small but real source of gamma-linolenic acid, with fish oil above it as the main omega supply.

The added nutrition is printed with a dose against every line. Zinc runs at 139 mg, iron at 54 mg, manganese at 38 mg, copper at 5 mg, iodine at 3.4 mg and selenium at 0.16 mg per kilo. Above them sit vitamin A at 28500 IU and vitamin D3 at 800 IU. Tea extract at 150 mg is in as a source of polyphenols, and clinoptilolite at 10 g is a mineral clay used in processing. The preservatives and antioxidants themselves are declared as categories without names, which is ordinary practice and the one remaining place the pack asks for trust.

Sold in 3kg and 12kg bags, at £5.42 a kilo.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would take about 242 grams a day, working out at £1.31, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). This is a breed food for a much larger dog, though, and the label's own table begins at 308 grams for a 26kg Labrador on low activity and runs to 425 grams at 40kg.