Eukanuba Breed Specific Dachshund Adult review

Our banding leaves this one in the Good band, and the typical adult dry food occupies the Good band as well, so the pair are level. Naming both meats, breaking the chicken share out separately and putting real doses on the joint compounds are all points in its favour. Four cereals run through the middle of the recipe, and protein converts to 27.2% of dry matter. That is a steady adult level, not a generous one, and it holds the food where it is.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken and turkey (26% including chicken 16%, a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and taurine), maize, wheat, pork fat, sorghum, barley, fresh chicken (4%), dried beet pulp (2.9%), chicken gravy, minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.38%), dried whole egg, fish oil (a natural source of omega-3 fatty acids), fructooligosaccharides (0.38%, a natural prebiotic), linseed, brewer's dried yeast (a natural source of B-vitamins and selenium), glucosamine (from animal tissues) (450mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (45mg/kg).

The headline meat is a combined entry, dried chicken and turkey at 26%, and the label does the useful thing of pinning chicken inside it at 16%. That 26% survives cooking more or less intact, because dried meat reaches the mixer with its water already gone. The fresh chicken at 4% is the opposite case, and the oven takes most of it away.

Maize, wheat, sorghum and barley share the starch between them, and carbohydrate settles at 46.1% of dry matter, almost exactly the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Sorghum is gluten free and barley cooks down easily while bringing fibre, selenium and copper along with it. Wheat is the entry worth knowing about. More grain intolerances trace back to it than to any other cereal.

Joint support is the part of this label doing genuine work. Glucosamine is dosed at 450mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 45mg/kg, both taken from animal tissues and both printed by weight. For a breed that asks a lifetime of unusual work from its back and joints, seeing those figures on the pack counts for more than a claim on the front.

Two small entries earn their place quietly. Sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.38% softens tartar, a sensible thing to have in a small mouth with crowded teeth. Fructooligosaccharides at 0.38% is a prebiotic, so what it feeds is the gut's own bacteria, not the dog directly. Dried beet pulp at 2.9% sits alongside them as the fermentable fibre.

The tail of the list is short and named. Most of the added energy is pork fat, and at least the animal is named. The marine omega 3s come from fish oil, with linseed behind for the plant form. Dried whole egg contributes a little very good protein, and brewer's dried yeast is there for B vitamins and selenium. Calcium works out at 1.39% of dry matter, comfortable for a grown dog.

£3.01 a kilo, sold in one bag size, two and a half kilos.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 226 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £0.68 a day. A dachshund is a much smaller dog than that, so scale the portion down and let the waistline settle it.