Royal Canin Medium Ageing Chunks In Gravy review

There is nothing in this pouch that should worry an owner whose dog is thriving on it, and the Average band it lands in describes the label rather than the food. Protein and processing and transparency both read Average, since a recipe written in category terms leaves our scoring little to verify, while nutritional balance comes back Outstanding and value reads Average with it. On the figures that can be verified the pouch does nicely. Protein converts to 41.3% of dry matter, fat to 28.1%, and the carbohydrate estimate stops at 17.8%, close to the 15.8% ordinary for adult wet food. Wet foods that sit in our Excellent band tend to be the ones that print their ingredients, so the difference at work here is one of openness rather than one of cooking.

Ingredients, as declared: meat and animal derivatives, cereals, oils and fats, vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, yeasts.

Meat and animal derivatives, cereals, oils and fats and derivatives of vegetable origin between them make up the body of this pouch. Every one of the four is a legal heading that could be filled several ways. Mainstream wet food is written this way as a matter of course, and it says nothing about hygiene. What it does mean is that one batch can be built from different material than the last while the printing stays the same.

Vegetable protein extracts sits fourth and lifts the protein figure with material taken from plants, without saying which plants or how it was extracted. So the 41.3% of dry matter that protein converts to is a mixed figure, with plant material inside it. That matters to anyone keeping soya or wheat off the menu and very little to everyone else.

Oils and fats appears third, which is high, and that placement shows in a fat figure of 5.5% as fed converting to 28.1% of dry matter. Richness of that order is exactly what an older dog with a fading appetite tends to need, since it puts more into a smaller serving.

The vitamins are where the ageing positioning becomes visible. Vitamin E is dosed at 145 mg per kilo and vitamin C at 70 mg, both antioxidants that older animals are commonly given more of. Vitamin D3 at 170 IU, zinc at 29 mg, iron at 10 mg, manganese at 2.9 mg, copper at 1.7 mg and iodine at 0.22 mg complete the panel. Holding the mix together is the job of clinoptilolite of sedimentary origin, a technological aid dosed at 2 g per kilo.

Yeasts finish the ingredient list, bringing B vitamins, the cell wall fibres often used as a prebiotic and a savoury edge that helps an older dog take an interest. Fibre converts to 4.1% of dry matter and ash to 8.7%, both unremarkable, which leaves the gravy, the richness and the vitamin panel as the real arguments for the pouch.

Ten pouches to a box, 140 g each, at £8.36 a kilo.

As a guide, a 15 kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through roughly 962 grams a day, coming to about £8.04. The basis is around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), with our estimated energy figure. The rows on the pack sit in the same territory, asking 685 grams a day at 11 kg, 1096 grams at 20 kg and 1233 grams at 25 kg.