Royal Canin Shih Tzu Puppy review

This one settles at Average, a step under the Good band the middle of the puppy dry field occupies. Nutritional balance is the strongest of the four readings at Good, and transparency the one holding it back at Poor.

The reasons repeat across the range it belongs to: protein sources given as categories rather than animals, a middle built from rice and maize, and no calcium reaching the panel. Read on its own the analysis is not the trouble, with fat converting to 19.6% of dry matter and energy running above the category norm, but the label leaves a reader very little to verify.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry protein, rice, maize, animal fats, vegetable protein isolate*, beet pulp, hydrolysed animal proteins, fish oil, minerals, soya oil, fructo-oligo-saccharides (0.34%), hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), borage oil (0.1%), yeasts extracts (source of betaglucans), marigold extract (source of lutein).

Dehydrated poultry protein opens the list. The water is already out of a dried meat, and that form carries through into the finished kibble most directly. Poultry, though, is a family name, and the bag never says which bird is in it.

Rice and maize come next and do most of the structural work, with a vegetable protein isolate behind them lifting the protein reading from a plant source. Beet pulp brings a moderate fibre that most puppy digestions take comfortably.

The fat side is where the breed thinking shows. Fish oil arrives early for its long chain omega 3 fats, with soya oil behind it. Borage oil at 0.1% is a declared source of gamma linolenic acid, and that is the fatty acid sitting behind skin comfort and coat condition. On a breed carrying that much hair it is a reasonable priority.

Protein is declared at 28.0% and fat at 18.0%, converting to 30.4% and 19.6% of dry matter on the standard 8% moisture assumption, since the label prints no moisture of its own. The carbohydrate estimate is 40.1% of dry matter, a shade past the 39.0% typical. Energy is declared at 397 kcal per 100g.

Calcium is missing from the panel, as it is across this range. A shih tzu finishes small, and small breed skeletons are the most forgiving of an unknown calcium level, but a growth food is exactly where that figure belongs.

The added panel is printed in full per kilo: vitamin A at 28000 IU, D3 at 800 IU and E at 570 mg. After those come manganese at 54 mg, iron at 41 mg, copper at 13 mg, zinc at 112 mg, iodine at 4.1 mg and selenium at 0.09 mg. Closing the list are yucca extract at 125 mg and clinoptilolite at 10 g. The yucca is for stool odour and the clinoptilolite is a processing aid, not a nutrient.

£9.16 a kilo, sold in a 1.5 kg bag.

Let the growth chart set the amount, not habit. The right amount goes up through the early months before it settles back, and a heavy coat makes it easy to miss a pup carrying more than it should.