Brit Care Dog Hypoallergenic Adult Large Breed review

This recipe finishes in our Good band; the typical adult dry food, for reference, settles in the very same place. A dehydrated meat figure that means what it says, protein and processing reading Good and estimated carbohydrate at 44.4% of dry matter against a typical 46.2% do most of the earning.

Ingredients, as declared: dehydrated lamb (40%), rice (38%), dried apple pulp, chicken fat, natural flavour, brewer's yeast, salmon oil (2%), pea flour, glucosamine (260 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (200 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (200 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (150 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (150 mg/kg), milk thistle seed (90 mg/kg), β-glucans (50 mg/kg), dried motherwort (50 mg/kg), dried sea buckthorn (50 mg/kg), Lactobacillus helveticus HA - 122 inactivated (15x109 cells/kg).

The lamb goes in dehydrated, so its 40% is measured after the water has gone, not before. That matters. A fresh-meat headline is mostly water that bakes away, where this one holds its shape, and protein duly converts to a solid 28.9% of dry matter. Lamb itself is a palatable, easily digested red meat and a sensible first swap for a dog that has fallen out with chicken or beef.

Rice at 38% is the single starch source. It is bland in the best sense, gluten free and gentle on digestion, which is exactly the role a hypoallergenic recipe wants its carbohydrate to play.

Honesty requires a look at the fat. It comes from chicken, with salmon oil at 2% behind it, and while rendered fat carries very little of the protein that triggers reactions, a by-the-book elimination trial counts it anyway. The unnamed natural flavouring deserves the same footnote. For everyday sensitive feeding neither is likely to matter; for diagnostic feeding they do.

The large breed thinking is real rather than cosmetic. Calcium comes out at 1.44% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level, and the glucosamine and chondroitin doses give ageing hips and elbows their support in print.

A familiar gut set closes the label: prebiotic fructo-oligosaccharides and mannan-oligosaccharides, β-glucans, Mojave yucca at 150 mg/kg and an inactivated Lactobacillus culture. Milk thistle, motherwort and sea buckthorn are dusted over the top at trace level.

£4.40 a kilo, in bags of 1kg, 3kg and 12kg.

Feed a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition and you are looking at around 228 grams and £1.00 a day, taking 840 kcal as the daily need (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the usual maintenance estimate). Larger dogs scale up from there, so weigh the dog before trusting any scoop.