Burns Weight Control+ review

Our Average band is where it lands, and that deserves context, because a weight-control food is playing a different game to the shelf around it. Our bands favour meat-forward building, and this label leans the other way on purpose: oats first, chicken third, energy held down. The typical adult dry food sits a band higher in our Good band and beats it on those terms. In the bowl of an overweight dog, though, those are not the terms that matter, and the things this recipe is actually for, fewer calories and longer-lasting fullness, are exactly what the label delivers.

Ingredients, as declared: Oats (55%), Brown Rice (18%), Dried Chicken (17%), Peas, Chicken Oil, Seaweed (0.5%), Minerals.

Oats at 55% is a genuinely unusual lead ingredient, and it is the whole strategy. Oats digest well once cooked, bring manganese and B vitamins along, and above all carry fibre, which lands at 7.5% as declared, or 8.2% once converted to dry matter. Fibre is the tool that makes a smaller ration feel bigger, and it is doing the heavy lifting here.

Dried chicken at 17% is the only animal present. It is weighed dry, so protein still converts to a respectable 20.1% of dry matter. Chicken oil keeps the added fat on the same species, so the single-animal claim survives the whole list.

Energy is a declared figure here, at 322 kcal per 100g against a typical 357 for adult dry food. In a category where calories are the entire point, a printed number is worth something.

Brown rice at 18% and peas complete the plant side, with carbohydrate converting to 56.4% of dry matter. Seaweed at 0.5% adds natural iodine, taurine is dosed at 1000mg per kilo, and the chelated trace minerals are itemised through to selenised yeast at 0.2mg. Calcium sits at 1.09% of dry matter.

£5.58 a kilo, with 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags to choose from.

At straight maintenance, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 261 grams a day for around £1.46, assuming roughly 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard estimate). The bag's own table is set for weight loss and asks less, 100 grams a day at 10kg and 200 grams at 20kg, so expect real portions to sit nearer the label than the estimate.