Collards Older/Overweight Lamb and Rice review

This one settles into the Average band, a step under the typical adult dry food, and the shape of the label explains why. Every meat entry is lamb and nearly every ingredient carries its own percentage, which counts for a good deal. Against that, lamb is declared at 26% while carbohydrate is estimated at 56.6% of dry matter, so the grain side is carrying more of the recipe than the meat is. It sets out to be a familiar biscuit for a settled older dog, and it manages that.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb 26% (Lamb Meat and Bone Meal 21%, Lamb Fat 3%, Lamb Gravy 2%), Brown Rice 24%, White Rice 24%, Whole Barley 12%, 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, Molluscs and Crustaceans as source of glucosamine, Yucca extract 0.01%, Chondroitin, Taurine, Marigold extract 0.005%, Rosemary extract 0.005%.

Lamb at 26% breaks into meat and bone meal at 21%, lamb fat at 3% and lamb gravy at 2%. Naming the animal on all three lines is the part worth crediting, since fat and gravy entries are exactly where labels tend to turn vague. The meal is already dried when it goes in, so that 21% carries through the oven, and protein finishes at 20.9% of dry matter.

Whole barley at 12% sits behind brown and white rice, each of them at 24%, and that makes this a firmly grain-based biscuit. Rice is among the kindest grains on an older digestion, and pairing the brown and white forms gives both the bran fibre and the readily available starch. Carbohydrate is estimated at 56.6% of dry matter, above the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries, which follows from the lighter meat share.

Fat at 10.4% of dry matter and energy at 328 kcal per 100g both come in under the typical adult dry food. That is the whole point of a recipe aimed at a dog who has slowed down. Whole linseed at 5% brings the omega 3 in its plant form. A dog converts that form more slowly than the version in fish oil. Give a coat weeks to answer, not days.

Bone in the meal lifts the mineral side, with crude ash at 8.8% of dry matter and calcium at 1.54% of dry matter. Both are comfortable for a grown or older dog, and both arrive with the meat, not out of a supplement sack.

The end of the list reads like a specification for the older dog. Taurine is on the list too, the amino acid people add for the heart. The glucosamine arrives by the shell route, from molluscs and crustaceans, with chondroitin behind it. Yucca extract at 0.01% turns up in many foods for its effect on what comes out the other end. Sugar beet pulp at 3% and chicory-derived fructo-oligosaccharide at 0.25% look after the gut, and none of the joint entries carry a printed dose.

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

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 256 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The energy behind that sum is estimated, not declared. The label's table asks 240 grams for that weight, and on a dog being slimmed the smaller figure is the better starting point.