Collards Adult Lamb and Rice review

The Good band is where our scoring places this, which is also where the typical adult dry food sits, so by construction it reads as a middle-of-the-road biscuit. Lamb named at every meat entry, and a list that gives nearly every ingredient its own percentage, are what lift it. Rice and barley taking a little over half the recipe, with protein settling at 25.3% of dry matter, are what keep it level. As an everyday bowl for a dog that suits lamb, it is a dependable thing to buy.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb 33% (Lamb Meat and Bone meal 27%, Lamb Fat 4%, Lamb Gravy 2%), Brown Rice 21%, White Rice 21%, Whole Barley 10%, Whole Linseed 5%, Sugar Beet Pulp 3%, Potato Protein, Dried Alfalfa 0.5%, Natural Seaweed Meal 0.5%, Fructo-Oligosaccharide (from chicory root extract 0.25%), Sodium chloride, Potassium chloride, Methionine, Yucca extract 0.01%, Molluscs and Crustaceans as source of glucosamine, Chondroitin, Marigold extract 0.005%, Rosemary extract 0.005%.

Lamb is declared at 33% and split three ways, which is the useful way to print it: meat and bone meal at 27%, lamb fat at 4% and lamb gravy at 2%. The meal is the dried, concentrated part, so it holds its share through the oven better than a fresh meat figure would. The species is named on all three lines, including the fat and the gravy, and that is exactly where labels usually go quiet. Protein converts to 25.3% of dry matter.

Bone travels with that meal and the analysis shows it, with crude ash at 10.1% of dry matter and calcium at 2.09% of dry matter, both towards the generous end for a grown dog. For an adult in ordinary health that is unremarkable, and the minerals arrive with the bone rather than out of a sack of powder.

The starch is rice in both its brown and white forms at 21% each, with whole barley at 10% behind them. Rice is one of the gentler grains on a dog's digestion, and using both forms gives the biscuit quickly available starch alongside the fibre that comes with the bran. Carbohydrate finishes at 49.2% of dry matter, not far off the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries.

Whole linseed at 5% is the omega source, milled into the biscuit rather than poured on as an oil. It supplies omega 3 in the plant form, which a dog's body converts more slowly than it takes the marine version, so give a coat a few weeks to answer. Sugar beet pulp at 3% is there for fibre, with chicory-derived fructo-oligosaccharide at 0.25% feeding the gut bacteria alongside it.

Glucosamine and chondroitin come in through molluscs and crustaceans, the usual shell route, so they are a genuine inclusion and not just a word on the front. No dose is printed next to them. The small print is seaweed meal at 0.5%, dried alfalfa at 0.5%, yucca extract at 0.01% and the marigold and rosemary extracts at 0.005% each. Printing figures that small is an honest touch.

Sold in a 2kg resealable bag and a 10kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 254 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The energy figure behind that sum is an estimate, not a declared one. On the label's own table the same dog gets 235 grams, so begin with the bag's number and let the waistline settle the difference.