Eukanuba Thriving Mature Small Breed review

Our Good band holds both this recipe and the midpoint of adult dry food, though the numbers underneath are not quite the usual ones. Protein and fat are well up on the category and carbohydrate is well down, at 42.4% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical. The ceiling comes from the plant side. Barley, maize and wheat take three of the top five places, and the added fat is poultry with no bird named. The protein and processing reading is Good, nutritional balance matches it, and transparency comes in stronger at Outstanding. For a small older dog that needs its calories in small mouthfuls, this is the strongest built of the three Thriving Mature recipes. The maker also declares moisture at 8.0%, so nothing there is assumed.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken and turkey (28% including chicken 20%, a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin and taurine), fresh chicken (16%), barley, maize, wheat, poultry fat, oats, sorghum, dried beet pulp (3.5%), chicken gravy, minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.34%), fructooligosaccharides (0.38%, a natural prebiotic), dried whole egg, glucosamine (from animal tissues) (0.04%).

Leading on dried chicken and turkey at 28% is unusual and genuinely useful. Cooking does not move dried meat down the way it moves fresh meat. Within that mix the chicken share is printed at 20%. Fresh chicken adds 16% more before the oven takes its water. Protein converts to 31.5% of dry matter and fat to 16.3%, the meatiest reading of the three Thriving Mature recipes by a clear margin.

Barley comes before the maize here, which is the better way round, because barley digests well once cooked and brings fibre along with selenium and copper. Maize, wheat, oats and sorghum follow it. Carbohydrate ends at 42.4% of dry matter, below the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. The plant side is doing rather less of the carrying than a cereal-based kibble usually asks of it. Moisture is declared at 8.0% rather than assumed, so those conversions rest on the label's own number.

Poultry fat sits sixth on the list, ahead of the oats and sorghum, and that is where most of the 15% fat comes from. The name given is the family, not the species, so chicken, turkey, duck and goose are all possible. For the vast majority of dogs that is neither here nor there. It becomes a live question only when you are trying to pin down a sensitivity.

The senior touches run through the whole Thriving Mature range. Here they are glucosamine from animal tissues at 0.04%, with the dried meat described as a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin and taurine. Sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.34% is in the minerals to slow tartar. That last one is worth more to a small dog than to most, since small mouths collect tartar fastest. Dried beet pulp at 3.5% is the highest fibre share in the range and fructooligosaccharides at 0.38% the highest prebiotic dose.

The doses are all in print: zinc at 62.5 mg, iron at 50 mg, manganese at 10 mg, copper at 8 mg and iodine at 1.5 mg per kilo. Alongside them sit vitamin E at 250 mg, beta carotene at 5 mg and L-carnitine at 50 mg. Dried whole egg closes the list. Energy is estimated at 366 kcal per 100g against 357 for a typical adult dry food. A small dog therefore takes what it needs from a slightly smaller heap in the bowl.

Two bag sizes are listed, the smaller of them 3kg.

Eukanuba's own guide asks 120 to 135 grams a day for an 8kg dog. For a 15kg adult in moderate condition the same food comes to about 230 grams a day, on a maintenance estimate of around 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Anything the tables disagree about is settled at the waistline.