Clinivet Adult Energy review

On our scale this lands in the Good band, the same neighbourhood the typical adult dry food occupies. The analysis side does its job, with decent protein and restrained fibre, but the ingredient list keeps it from climbing. The lead meat is an unnamed poultry meal, corn appears without a percentage, and the recipe as a whole reads functional, never generous. None of that stops it fuelling a busy dog perfectly well.

Ingredients, as declared: Poultry Meat Meal (34%), Brown Rice (23%), Corn, Chicken Oil (4%), Oats, Sugar Beet Pulp, Chicken hydrolysate (3%), Dried Brewer's Yeasts, Dried Whole Egg, Fish meal, Whole Linseed, Minerals, Salmon Oil, Prebiotic MOS (305 mg/kg), Prebiotic FOS (305 mg/kg), Glucosamine (200 mg/kg), MSM (200 mg/kg), Chondroitin (150 mg/kg), Yucca Extract (140 mg/kg).

Poultry meal at 34% is a pre-dried and concentrated protein source. It shows in the analysis, with protein converting to 30.4% of dry matter, a proper working level. The trade is the word poultry itself. That category covers chicken, turkey and duck alike, and which one is in the bag may shift between batches. Chicken oil at 4% and a chicken hydrolysate at 3% confirm at least some of the bird content is chicken. The hydrolysate is a palatability booster, protein broken into savoury fragments dogs find hard to resist.

Brown rice at 23% leads the cereal side with corn and oats behind it. Together they put estimated carbohydrate at 46.3% of dry matter, in step with the 46.2% typical of adult dry food, so the energy comes from a conventional cereal base rather than an unusually meaty one.

Egg and fish meal are quiet quality signals further down the list, both dense and well-regarded proteins, while salmon oil adds marine omega 3s and linseed covers the plant kind.

The supplement work is done in print. Glucosamine and MSM come in at 200 mg/kg each with chondroitin at 150 mg/kg. Prebiotic MOS and FOS are at 305 mg/kg apiece, and yucca extract at 140 mg/kg is there for stool odour. Some of the zinc comes as a chelate, and so do the copper and the iron. Chelates are the form generally credited with better absorption.

One gap worth noting is calcium, which the label does not declare. That matters less on an adult maintenance diet than it would on a growth one, but it is a blank a careful reader will notice.

£3.29 a kilo, sold as a 14kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through roughly 241 grams a day, about £0.79, using the standard maintenance estimate of around 840 kcal daily (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The energy figure behind that sum is estimated from the analysis rather than declared.