Burns Active review

It finishes in our Good band, keeping pace with the typical adult dry food rather than pulling clear of it. The strengths and the limits roughly cancel out: a plainly named list and protein at 26.1% of dry matter on one side, a rice-led construction on the other. Judged as a specialist high-output food, which is the job it applied for, it holds its own.

Ingredients, as declared: White Rice (37%), Dried Chicken (29%), Chicken Oil, Oats (7%), Peas, Whole Linseed, Fish Meal, Sunflower Oil, Seaweed (0.5%), Minerals.

White rice at 37% carries the carbohydrate, and it is a deliberate choice for a food like this: bland, easily digested and quick to convert into usable energy. Oats at 7% add a slower-burning cereal alongside it. Even so, estimated carbohydrate lands at 41.3% of dry matter, a little below the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, unusual for a recipe with rice at the top of the list.

Dried chicken at 29% is the protein engine. Drying removes the water before the chicken is weighed, so that figure represents genuinely concentrated meat, and it is what drives the 26.1% dry-matter protein. Chicken oil behind it supplies much of the 20.0% fat that defines the recipe.

Whole linseed and fish meal both contribute omega 3 fats, the first from a plant and the second from the sea, with sunflower oil adding omega 6 for skin and coat. Peas bring a modest plant protein top-up, and seaweed at 0.5% is a mineral-rich flourish typical of the brand.

The additive panel is compact but carefully chosen. Taurine is dosed at 1000 mg per kilo, an amino acid best known for supporting the heart. Zinc at 50 mg and manganese at 20 mg both arrive as chelates of amino acids, the form a dog usually absorbs best.

£5.00 a kilo, sold as a 12kg bag. As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition costs about £1.09 a day at roughly 217 grams, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own table lists 140 grams for a 10kg dog and 280 grams for a 20kg dog, and a genuinely hard-working dog may need more than any maintenance estimate suggests.