Beta Sensitive review

Beta Sensitive finishes in our Average band; the typical adult dry food, for comparison, earns a Good from us. The gap comes from construction rather than danger. Cereals supply more of the bowl than salmon does, several entries name no species, and the trace minerals arrive in their plainer sulphate forms. None of that stops a dog thriving on it, and plenty do, but it explains why the label reads the way it does.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon meal (17%), Wheat*, Corn*, Rice* (14%), Soya meal, Animal fats, Dried beet pulp, Corn protein meal, Dried chicory root*1 (1%), Digest, Minerals, Fish oil, Dried carrot* (0.07%), Dried spinach* (0.07%), Dried parsley* (0.07%), *Natural ingredients, 1Natural prebiotic

Salmon meal at 17% leads the label, and meal is the concentrated, water-off form of fish, so it works harder than a fresh-fish entry of the same size would. Behind it, though, wheat, corn and rice at 14% supply most of the bowl, and the estimated carbohydrate of 47.8% of dry matter against a typical 46.2% tells that story plainly.

Wheat sits second on the list. Most dogs handle it without incident, but it is one of the cereals more often implicated when intolerance does show up, which is worth weighing on a food bought for its sensitive positioning. Soya meal, a plant protein used to lift the total, carries a similar reputation.

Dried chicory root at 1% is the recipe's prebiotic, feeding the gut's friendly bacteria, and dried beet pulp adds gentle fibre. These are the entries doing the sensitive-stomach work, and they are sensible choices.

Fish oil brings omega 3 support for skin and coat. The animal fats and the digest, by contrast, are unnamed, which only matters if you need to know exactly which animals your dog is eating.

The added minerals are dosed in print, zinc at 79 mg and iron at 56 mg per kilo among them. They come as sulphates, where some makers now favour the chelated forms, and the selenium is the standard sodium selenite.

Sold in 2kg and 14kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition gets through about 221 grams a day on this recipe. The target is roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The bag's own table asks 215 grams for a 14kg dog, so the two agree closely.