Royal Canin X-Small Adult review

In our banding this comes out Average, a step under the Good band that the middle of the dry adult market holds. What pulls it down is not the analysis, which is unremarkable in the good sense, but the composition. The leading meat is followed by rice and then five more cereal entries, two of them glutens whose job is to lift the protein figure, and every animal ingredient is described by family. Fed to the dog it names, a small adult with a small appetite, it does what is asked of it day after day.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry proteins, rice, animal fats, wheat flour, wheat, maize flour, maize gluten, wheat gluten, hydrolysed animal proteins, chicory pulp, minerals (including pentasodium triphosphate (0.35%)), psyllium husks and seeds, soya oil, yeasts products, fructo-oligosaccharides, fish oil, algal oil Schizochytrium sp. (source of EPA and DHA).

The meat comes first here, and it comes dried, which is worth a moment of your time. Dehydrated poultry proteins have already lost their water before the recipe is mixed, so unlike a fresh meat headline there is no shrinkage to allow for. Protein is declared at 24.0% and fat at 18.0%, which on the label's own 8.0% moisture works out at 26.1% and 19.6% of dry matter.

Behind that the cereal stack does the structural work: rice, wheat flour, wheat, maize flour, maize gluten and wheat gluten. Estimated carbohydrate is 42.7% as fed and 46.4% of dry matter, a shade over the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. The glutens deserve a specific mention. They are plant proteins that lift the protein figure, and a dog does not get the same value from them that it gets from meat protein.

The energy density is what makes the recipe work for its audience. At 400 kcal per 100g the label asks 54 grams a day for a 3kg dog at low activity. For a stomach that size that is a proper meal, not a token spoonful in the bottom of the bowl.

Chicory pulp and fructo-oligosaccharides are the prebiotics, psyllium husks add soluble fibre, and yeasts products round out the digestive side. Fish oil and algal oil share the omega 3 duties between them, the algal oil supplying EPA and DHA directly. Pentasodium triphosphate at 0.35% is the tooth entry, which counts for something in a breed size where dental trouble tends to arrive early.

What the list never does is name an animal. Any domestic bird could be behind the poultry, behind the animal fats and behind the hydrolysed animal proteins. The label declines to commit. For most small dogs that changes precisely nothing, and it becomes a real limitation only when you are trying to trace a reaction back to a single ingredient.

£8.13 a kilo, sold in a 1.5kg bag.

Set against the reference dog we use across the board, a 15kg adult in moderate condition on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The figure here is 210 grams and £1.71 a day. The dogs this bag is actually for eat far less. The label's low activity rows are 24 grams at 1kg and 67 grams at 4kg.