Eukanuba Adult Large Breed Weight Control review

Weight Control settles in our Average band, a rung below the Good band that holds the bulk of the adult dry category. That is a fair result for a recipe that has deliberately given up meat density and fat in order to bring the calories down. Our scoring reads the analysis and the ingredients list, and it does not read the job a food has been asked to do. On that reading, maize in front of the meat and carbohydrate at 58.6% of dry matter both count against it. Judged as what it actually is, a gentler energy bag for a large dog who needs to shed some weight, it does what it was designed to do. Transparency reads Good, protein and processing Average and nutritional balance Poor.

Ingredients, as declared: maize, dried chicken and turkey (15% including chicken 11%, a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin and taurine), fresh chicken (10%), barley, sorghum, wheat, dried beet pulp (3.1%), fish meal, chicken gravy, poultry fat, minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.36%), dried whole egg, linseed, brewer's dried yeast (a natural source of B-vitamins and selenium), fructooligosaccharides (0.26%, a natural prebiotic), glucosamine (from animal tissues) (0.04%).

Maize leads, and there is no getting round what that means. This is a cereal first recipe, and that is the mechanism by which fat comes down to 8.5% and energy to around 334 kcal per 100 grams. The 357 kcal typical for adult dry food sits well above that. If your dog needs to take in less energy without eating visibly less food, that is exactly the swap you are looking for.

The meat is dried chicken and turkey at 15%, of which chicken itself is 11%, plus fresh chicken at 10%. The oven leaves fresh chicken a fraction of its starting weight, so the dried entry is where most of the finished protein actually comes from. Protein lands at 21% as declared, or 22.8% of dry matter.

Barley, sorghum and wheat fill in behind the maize. Barley is the friendliest of the three once cooked, and sorghum brings no gluten with it. Wheat is the one to know about, being the grain most often tied to dietary intolerance in dogs, so it deserves a thought if your dog has struggled with a cereal before. Carbohydrate reaches 53.8% as fed, or 58.6% of dry matter, which is the arithmetic behind a lower fat kibble rather than an oversight.

Fibre matters more than usual in a food like this, and beet pulp at 3.1% is the main source, with crude fibre declared at 2.7%. Fructooligosaccharides at 0.26% is there as a prebiotic, working on the large intestine. Linseed brings plant omega 3 along with a little more fibre. Fish meal adds concentrated protein without much fat, though it is not named to a species. The added fat is poultry fat, a family of birds and not one bird.

The mineral panel is the quiet upgrade here. Iron, copper, zinc and manganese all arrive as amino acid chelates, a form the gut generally takes up more readily than plain sulphates. Selenium is dosed at 0.1mg per kilo. L-carnitine at 50mg per kilo is the classic companion to a weight recipe, an amino acid relative involved in moving fatty acids into the machinery that burns them.

Calcium works out at 1.2% of dry matter, a settled adult figure, and sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.36% is the tartar entry. Dried whole egg and brewer's dried yeast round the list out, the first with very digestible protein and the second with B vitamins and selenium. The energy figure here is our own estimate, so treat the calorie number as a close guide.

Two bag sizes are listed here, 12kg and 15kg.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would take around 251 grams a day of this, assuming a maintenance need of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard estimate). Feed a large dog on a reducing plan to the weight you are aiming at, not the weight on the scales today. The vet's monthly weigh in is the best arbiter of the portion.