Royal Canin Medium Adult 7+ review

Our scoring lands this one in the Average band, below the Good band where the middle of the adult dry shelf sits. Two things pull it down. Cereals take most of the list, with carbohydrate estimated at 49.8% of dry matter against the 46.2% that is typical for adult dry food. Almost every animal entry stays generic too, from the dehydrated poultry proteins at the top down to the unnamed fats and hydrolysed proteins further along. Neither is a safety question. Both are a transparency question, and the scoring reads a label as written. What the label does declare is a fully dosed vitamin and mineral panel and a genuine set of mature dog touches, which is why so many medium breed veterans do perfectly well on it.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry proteins, wheat flour, maize flour, maize, rice, animal fats, wheat, wheat gluten, beet pulp, hydrolysed animal proteins, maize gluten, minerals, soya oil, yeasts products, fish oil, psyllium husks and seeds, fructo-oligosaccharides, algal oil Schizochytrium sp., yeasts (source of manno-oligosaccharides).

Dehydrated poultry proteins take first place, which is the strongest position on any ingredients list. Dehydrated is the useful word here, because the water went before the entry did, and the position holds honestly once the kibble is baked. The catch is the family name. The label never says which bird, and poultry stretches to chicken, turkey, duck and goose. Protein comes out at 27.2% of dry matter. That is a respectable level on a food for older dogs, where the easy move is to trim it back.

Behind the meat the recipe is a cereal one. Wheat flour, maize flour, maize, rice, wheat and wheat gluten all appear, and together they put estimated carbohydrate at 49.8% of dry matter. Cooked cereal is not the villain it is sometimes painted as, since most dogs digest it perfectly well and rice in particular is about as gentle as a grain gets. Wheat is the one to note, and only because more food intolerances trace back to it than to any other grain.

The mature dog thinking sits in the smaller entries. Fish oil and algal oil bring EPA and DHA between them, the marine omega 3s usually chosen with ageing joints and minds in view. Vitamin E is dosed at 500 mg and vitamin C at 200 mg per kilo as the antioxidant pair. Soluble fibre comes from psyllium husks and seeds, with fructo-oligosaccharides feeding the gut flora behind them. Crude fibre itself stays low at 1.7% of dry matter, so this is a gentle nudge to the digestion and not a bulking diet.

The unnamed entries deserve a straight answer. Animal fats do real work on energy and palatability, hydrolysed animal proteins do theirs on taste, and neither is a low grade ingredient by nature. What they will not tell you is the species. Hydrolysis breaks protein into fragments small enough that most dogs stop reacting to them, so a food built this way cannot anchor a strict elimination plan. Add maize gluten and soya oil and the label is asking for a fair amount of trust.

The additive panel is complete and dosed in print. Vitamin A comes at 21900 IU and vitamin D3 at 1000 IU. Zinc is at 132 mg, manganese at 49 mg and iron at 37 mg, with copper at 12 mg, iodine at 3.7 mg and selenium at 0.09 mg per kilo. Calcium goes undeclared, which is a gap on any label, although for a dog past seven it is a far smaller one than it would be on a food for growth.

£4.69 a kilo, sold in 4kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 218 grams a day, which works out at £1.02 a day. That comes off around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own table asks 149 grams for an 11kg dog and 277 grams for a 25kg one at low activity. Where the two disagree, the waistline settles it.