Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Urinary S/O review

Ingredients, as declared: Maize flour, rice, animal fats, dehydrated poultry proteins, maize gluten, minerals, hydrolysed animal proteins, vegetable fibres, soya oil, fish oil, fructo-oligosaccharides, mono- and diglycerides of palmitic and stearic acids esterified with citric acid, marigold meal.

Maize flour heads the list with rice second, animal fats third and dehydrated poultry proteins fourth. That order puts the starch and the fat ahead of the meat entry, which is how a recipe that deliberately holds its protein down tends to read on the pack.

Minerals appear sixth, high up for an ingredient list, and on a diet of this type that placement is the point of the exercise: the mineral profile is the thing being controlled. Calcium is one of the few declared by figure, coming out at 0.54% once the moisture is taken away.

The animal side is written in categories throughout. No species is named across the three animal entries: dehydrated poultry proteins, animal fats and hydrolysed animal proteins. Fish oil puts fish into a recipe that otherwise reads as bird. Soya oil is in there too. A label written this way cannot tell an owner on an exclusion plan what it rules out.

Protein is declared at 18.0%, or 19.6% of dry matter, and fat at 17.0%, which converts to 18.5%. Crude fibre is slight at 2.2%, 2.4% dried down, the carbohydrate estimate reaches 48.2% as fed and 52.3% of dry matter, and energy is printed at 388 kcal per 100g against a declared 8.0% moisture. A protein figure that looks modest next to an everyday bowl is the intended shape of a urinary diet, not a gap in it. The person to judge that shape is the vet treating your dog.

One entry near the end, mono- and diglycerides of palmitic and stearic acids esterified with citric acid, is an emulsifier, there to keep the fat worked evenly through the kibble rather than to feed anything. Fructo-oligosaccharides and marigold meal close the list.

Added vitamins and trace minerals carry printed doses per kilo. Vitamin A carries 16000 IU and vitamin D3 1000 IU. Zinc runs to 147 mg, manganese to 57 mg, iron to 44 mg, copper to 14 mg, iodine to 4.4 mg and selenium to 0.06 mg. The pack's own feeding table runs from 48 grams a day for a 2kg dog to 758 grams at 80kg, with 216 grams listed for a dog of 15kg. On a therapeutic diet that table sits below whatever your vet has specified.

It is sold in 2kg, 7.5kg and 13kg bags.