Royal Canin Poodle Loaf review

The wording undersells this loaf, and the analysis is where you see it. Two animal entries head the list, our estimate puts the animal share at 59.5%, and the carbohydrate estimate comes out at 16.2% of dry matter, close to the 15.8% the typical adult wet food carries. Even with all that, the loaf finishes at Average, two bands behind that typical food, which reaches our Excellent band.

Protein and processing and transparency both come back Average. The analysis on its own carries nutritional balance to Outstanding. A category term cannot be credited, however good the material behind it might be, and this label offers nothing but category terms. Royal Canin's breed work is thorough and the loaf will suit plenty of poodles very well. Our score reflects the reading, not the recipe, because the recipe is not on offer.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives, fish and fish derivatives, derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, oils and fats, minerals, various sugars.

Two animal entries open the list, which is more than most labels of this style manage. Meat and animal derivatives covers the fleshy parts and processing derivatives of warm blooded land animals, while fish and fish derivatives covers fish or parts of fish and anything derived from processing them. Both are legal umbrellas. Each takes in material at the top of the quality range and material at the bottom, and neither one tells you which creature was involved.

That pairing is worth understanding properly. Fish sitting second means there is real fish in the loaf. That is genuine news either way, whether your dog thrives on fish or has to steer clear of it. What it does not mean is that this is a fish diet, because a land animal entry sits above it. A dog being kept on one protein cannot be fed on this.

Derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals and oils and fats follow, each of them another open term, and various sugars closes the list. Sugar is added because dogs enjoy it. No quantity is given, and how much is present cannot be weighed. It is the sort of entry worth knowing about, and nothing to worry over.

Look at the analysis and the label is at its strongest. Protein converts to 41.9% of dry matter and fat to 27.0%, which is rich for a wet food. The carbohydrate estimate comes out at 16.2% of dry matter, near enough the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. Crude fibre converts to 5.6% of dry matter and crude ash to 9.3%, both a shade above what a plain meat loaf would show.

Additives are dosed and printed, using the older E number style. Vitamin D3 comes at 110 IU per kilo, iron at 8 mg, iodine at 0.3 mg, copper at 2.1 mg, manganese at 2.5 mg and zinc at 25 mg. There is no technological additive listed here at all, which is a small point of difference on an otherwise very standard panel.

Put together, this is a loaf carrying more animal content than its wording lets on, none of it identified. A poodle who eats it happily and looks well on it is doing perfectly fine. Just go in clear eyed that the fish on the front is a category rather than a fish you could name.

£13.76 a kilo, in 85 g portions sold in packs of twelve.

Put against a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, which is larger than the small poodles this loaf is aimed at, feeding would be around £12.43 a day, or roughly 903 grams. That takes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) and our estimated 93 kcal per 100g.