Royal Canin Mini Puppy review

Our Average band is where this kibble finishes, a step below the Good band that the middle of the puppy dry market occupies. Nutritional balance reads Good, while transparency and the protein and processing side sit a band back in Average, so the shortfall is about naming rather than about the bowl.

Two things pull hardest. Most of the protein arrives under category names rather than as an identified animal, and a supporting cast of wheat and maize fractions does work that meat does in stronger recipes. The analysis is not the weak part here. Protein reads 33.7% of dry matter and the starch load sits under the category norm.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry protein, rice, animal fats, wheat gluten*, maize, beet pulp, maize flour, hydrolysed animal proteins, maize gluten, minerals, soya oil, fish oil, fructo-oligo-saccharides, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides and betaglucans) (0.30%), algal oil Schizochytrium sp. (source of DHA), Yucca Schidigera juice, marigold meal.

Dehydrated poultry protein leads, and the dehydrated part is worth decoding. Its water has already gone. Weigh it against fresh meat declared at the same weight and it delivers more protein to the finished kibble. The one thing it never tells you is which bird, and a recipe written this way can move between them as supply changes.

Rice sits second with maize, maize flour, wheat gluten and maize gluten behind it. Gluten fractions are concentrated plant proteins, and they lift the figure on the analysis without meat behind them. A dog takes less from them than from the same protein off an animal. Remember it when you read the 31.0% on the front of the bag.

The fibre from beet pulp is gentle and well tolerated. Alongside it sits a prebiotic pair, fructo-oligo-saccharides together with a hydrolysed yeast at 0.30%, and they feed the bacteria a young gut has yet to settle. DHA gets a named source here, algal oil, and it is the omega 3 a young dog's brain and eyes develop on. Fish oil adds to the same side of the fat picture.

Turn to the analysis and the label reads a good deal better. Protein reads 33.7% of dry matter, fat 21.7%, and carbohydrate an estimated 34.4%, under the 39.0% typical of puppy dry food. Ash at 8.7% points to a solid mineral package, though the one mineral growth cares about most is missing from the print.

That mineral is calcium, and no figure for it appears anywhere on this label. For a small breed pup the margin for error is wider than it is for a big one, so this is not a reason to panic. A growth food that declines to print its calcium does ask you to take the balance on trust.

The added panel is dosed in full per kilo: vitamin A at 21500 IU and D3 at 1000 IU. Then zinc at 128 mg, manganese at 50 mg, iron at 38 mg, copper at 12 mg, iodine at 3.8 mg and selenium at 0.06 mg. Clinoptilolite at 10 g is a processing clay. The preservatives and antioxidants are given as categories without names, which is the one small thing this panel could tidy.

£5.94 a kilo, sold in 2 kg, 4 kg and 8 kg bags.

Growth feeding is a sliding scale. Come back to the bag's chart every few weeks, since the right amount moves with your pup's age and with the adult size you are aiming at.