Is Royal Canin a good dog food?

Honestly? It depends on what you're feeding it for. Royal Canin has earned its spot. The therapeutic range you get through your vet, the ones for kidney issues, urinary problems, or a dog recovering from surgery, is genuinely well researched and does a real job. Their breed-specific formulas are clever too, with the kibble shaped and balanced for a particular breed. If your dog has a diagnosed condition and your vet's put them on a prescription formula, that's the right call and you should stick with it.

The everyday range is where the value question gets harder. Pick up a standard bag and read the first few ingredients: you'll often find corn and corn flour near the top, with dehydrated poultry as the main protein. That's a grain-heavy recipe built on fairly cheap protein, sold at a price that suggests something fancier. It's not bad food and it won't hurt your dog. But you're paying extra for the brand and the research budget more than for what's in the bowl.

It's also made overseas and owned by Mars, so it travels a long way to reach us. If provenance matters to you, that's worth knowing. For a healthy dog with no medical needs, you can usually find better ingredients for the same money or less. We built Happy Hour partly for that exact gap: NZ-made, grain-free, real NZ grass-fed lamb front and centre. Worth comparing the labels side by side before you decide.