Eukanuba Daily Care Overweight Sterilized review

Our scoring reads every recipe as a general adult diet, and by that yardstick this one lands in our Good band, where most adult dry foods sit too, with only a little between them. Almost all of that distance is deliberate. Fat at 8.2% of dry matter and energy at 328 kcal per 100g are the entire point of a weight recipe. Protein comes in gently at 23.9% of dry matter. Estimated carbohydrate of 56.0% of dry matter fills the room the fat used to occupy, against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Read as what it is, a controlled ration for a dog with a few kilos to shed, it does the job it was drawn for.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken and turkey (19% including chicken 13%, a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin and taurine), maize, wheat, sorghum, barley, dried apple pomace, fresh chicken (4%), dried beet pulp (3.8%), fish meal, chicken gravy, poultry fat, minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.36%), dried whole egg, linseed, fish oil (a natural source of omega-3 fatty acids), brewer's dried yeast (a natural source of B-vitamins and selenium), fructooligosaccharides (0.27%, a natural prebiotic), glucosamine (from animal tissues) (0.04%).

The anchor is 19% dried chicken and turkey, with chicken named at 13% of it. Being dried, it survives into the finished kibble largely intact. The fresh chicken at 4% is a garnish by comparison. Protein lands at 23.9% of dry matter, which is where diet recipes usually sit. Portion against the weight you are aiming for rather than the weight your dog is now, and keep the walks going while the ration comes down.

The middle of the list is four cereals: maize, wheat, sorghum and barley. Sorghum is the more interesting of them, gluten free and broadly similar to maize in what it brings, while barley earns its keep with fibre. Wheat will matter most to you of the four. It is the grain found at the bottom of a cereal intolerance more often than any other.

Bulk is the quiet trick in a diet food, and here it comes from dried beet pulp at 3.8%, dried apple pomace and fructooligosaccharides at 0.27%. Crude fibre finishes at 4.3% of dry matter, above what a standard adult kibble carries, and that is what stops a reduced meal feeling quite so reduced.

Fat is the headline restraint at 7.5%, with poultry fat and fish oil sharing what remains and linseed adding plant omega 3. The other weight lever on the label is L-carnitine at 50mg, an amino acid that helps move fat to where it gets burned. Fish meal sits mid list and brings dense protein without much fat attached, which is exactly why it is there.

Amino acid chelates carry the trace minerals, and that form is generally the easier one for a gut to absorb. Every one is printed: zinc at 62.5mg, iron at 50mg, manganese at 10mg, copper at 5mg, iodine at 1.5mg and selenium at 0.1mg per kilo of food. Sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.36% is in there for tartar, dried whole egg adds easily used protein, and brewer's dried yeast carries B vitamins alongside a little more selenium.

There are two bag sizes, a small one for a trial run and a 12kg for a settled feeder.

Portions are the part that really matters on a food like this. The label's table asks 270 to 310 grams a day for a 20kg dog. The sensible move is to set the ration against the weight you are working towards, not the number on the scales today. Check in every couple of weeks and adjust.