Royal Canin Maxi Dermacomfort review

Our Average band is where this comes out, and the typical adult dry food sits a level higher in Good. That reading follows the ingredients list rather than the analysis panel. Protein reaches 27.5% of dry matter, unremarkable but perfectly workable, and estimated carbohydrate at 45.5% sits just under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. What pulls the reading down is that almost nothing in the bowl can be traced to a named animal, which leaves protein and processing at Poor and transparency at Average. That describes the label and carries no warning about the food. For a dog whose skin has been objecting to meats, a recipe assembled this way is rather the point.

Ingredients, as declared: wheat, vegetable protein isolate*, rice, animal fats, maize gluten, maize, husked oats, minerals, hydrolysed animal proteins, soya oil, beet pulp, fish oil, flax seeds, fructo-oligo-saccharides, borage oil, marigold extract (source of lutein).

Wheat opens the list, which is unusual on a food sold for a specific problem, and vegetable protein isolate comes straight after it. Between those two, plus maize gluten and maize, the plant side supplies most of the protein here. Plant protein does less for a dog than meat protein does. That makes the 25.0% declared on the pack worth slightly less than the same figure on a meat-led bag.

There is no named meat in this food at all. The land-animal side comes down to animal fats and hydrolysed animal proteins, and neither of them says which animal. On most labels that would be a plain criticism. Here it reads closer to the design, since a skin recipe written for dogs that react to common proteins has a reason not to lean on one. It does mean the bag cannot act as the fixed single protein in a formal elimination trial, because an unnamed animal entry could be almost anything.

Rice and husked oats are the better carbohydrates on the list. Once cooked, oats are easy to digest and bring fibre with a set of trace nutrients. Rice sits gently with most dogs. Beet pulp and fructo-oligo-saccharides are the digestive entries behind them, though crude fibre still finishes at only 1.6%, so this is not a bulky kibble.

The skin thinking is concentrated in the oils. The long-chain omega 3s that skin responds to most directly come from the fish oil. Gamma-linolenic acid comes from the borage oil, the fatty acid most often reached for when skin is inflamed, and flax seeds add plant omega 3 behind them. Marigold extract is in as a source of lutein. Coat and skin change slowly, so give a new bag several weeks to show its hand.

The mineral panel is generous and fully dosed. Zinc is at 148 mg, manganese at 75 mg and iron at 73 mg, with copper at 15 mg, iodine at 6.1 mg and selenium at 0.19 mg per kilo. Above them sit vitamin A at 29500 IU and vitamin D3 at 800 IU. Skin leans on zinc harder than on any other mineral, and the figure here is a strong one for a dry food. That is exactly what you want on a bag with this name.

£5.27 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 223 grams a day, coming to £1.17, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The dogs this food is written for are a good deal heavier than that, and the label asks 276 grams at 26kg rising to 409 grams at 44kg.