Royal Canin Pug Adult review

The Average band is where this one lands for us, a level below the Good band that the middle of the adult dry shelf occupies. The distance comes from how the recipe is built rather than from anything troubling in it. Rice opens the list, cereal reappears in five further entries after the meat, and the animal ingredients are described by family instead of by species. Judged on what it actually sets out to do, feed an adult pug the same way every day, it manages that without drama.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, dehydrated poultry proteins, maize flour, animal fats, maize, wheat flour, maize gluten, wheat gluten*, hydrolysed animal proteins, beet pulp, minerals, vegetable fibres, fish oil, soya oil, fructo-oligosaccharides, borage oil, glucosamine from fermentation, marigold meal, hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin). *L.I.P.: protein selected for its very high digestibility.

Rice heads the list with dehydrated poultry proteins behind it, which tells you this starts as a cereal biscuit with a concentrated meat powder built in. Dried meat is honest in one respect. The water came out before mixing, so its position on the list is close to the share it holds in the bowl. Protein finishes at 25.0%, or 27.2% of dry matter, with fat at 16.0% and 17.4% of dry matter, and estimated carbohydrate at 46.9% of dry matter, near enough the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Separate entries appear for maize flour, maize, wheat flour, maize gluten and wheat gluten. Split up like that each one reads small. Taken together the cereal side accounts for a great deal of the recipe, and the two glutens lift the protein figure with plant protein.

The oils are the most likeable part of the label. The marine omega 3s a dog uses most readily come from the fish oil, and borage oil supplies gamma linolenic acid, the fatty acid usually reached for when skin needs settling. Both are welcome on a breed with as many folds to look after as this one.

Glucosamine from fermentation and hydrolysed cartilage as a chondroitin source close the list out. No dose is printed for either, so read them as a useful background for an ageing pug. Fructo-oligosaccharides sit nearby as a prebiotic fibre, with beet pulp and vegetable fibres doing the bulk of the fibre work at a declared 2.0%.

The real limitation is naming. Poultry names a category. The animal fats do the same, as do the hydrolysed animal proteins. That leaves the label committed to no particular bird. Most pugs will never care in the slightest. The question only goes live when a vet has you testing one protein at a time, and this label cannot settle it either way.

£6.98 a kilo, with the choice of a 1.5kg or a 7.5kg bag.

As a standard comparison we put every dry food past the same dog, a 15kg adult in moderate condition assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to 216 grams and £1.50 a day here. A pug is a good deal smaller than that reference dog. The label's own table asks 93 grams a day at 6kg and 137 grams at 10kg, so the real daily figure in your house sits well below it.