Lifestage Adult Large Breed review

Our scoring puts this in the Good band, level with the middle of the adult dry shelf. Value comes back Good and transparency Outstanding, with protein and processing and nutritional balance Average. The label is really the story: one named animal used consistently, a mineral panel dosed to the milligram, an analysis with nothing left off it and a joint trio in print. Nothing is spectacular and nothing is thin, which for a big dog eating the same thing every day of the year is a sensible shape for a food to be.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (30%), Turkey Meal (22%), Freshly Prepared Turkey (4%), Turkey Fat (2%), Turkey Gravy (2%), Brown Rice (22%), White Rice (21%), Oats (19%), Linseed (3%), Beet Pulp (2%), Alfalfa, Minerals, Seaweed, Omega 3 Supplement, Chicory Extract, Dandelion, Yucca Extract, Glucosamine, Methylsulfonylmethane, Chondroitin Sulphate

Turkey is named five ways before the list reaches anything else, and the entry that matters most is turkey meal at 22%. Water is most of what fresh meat weighs, and it goes during cooking. Turkey meal arrives already dried, and its contribution to the finished kibble's protein runs ahead of its position on the list. As fed, protein reads 23.0%, which converts to 25.0% of dry matter.

Brown rice at 22% leads the starch, with white rice at 21% and oats at 19% behind it. Oats do the most good of the three, carrying fibre and a range of micronutrients and digesting easily once cooked. Beet pulp at 2% brings fermentable fibre, and firm stools follow from it. Estimated carbohydrate reaches 54.3% of dry matter against a 46.2% norm for adult dry food. The cereal here is part of the meal in its own right.

Linseed at 3% is the plant omega 3 source, useful to a coat over time even though the marine forms act faster, and seaweed follows the minerals as a natural contributor of iodine. An omega 3 supplement also appears without a source. It is the one entry on this label a careful reader cannot place.

Glucosamine, methylsulfonylmethane and chondroitin all appear, exactly the set you hope for on a large breed food, but they arrive at the very end with no milligram figure beside them. Take them as a welcome addition, since no dose is printed. Calcium converts to 1.41% of dry matter, a settled level for a grown dog of any size.

The last stretch is seasoning: alfalfa, chicory extract, dandelion and yucca extract. Chicory extract is the one earning its place. Its inulin is food for the large intestine's own bacteria. The minerals behind them are dosed in print, though selenium comes as sodium selenite and zinc as zinc oxide, the plainer forms rather than the chelates you see on some labels.

£2.75 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 253 grams a day and cost £0.70 a day. Behind that sits an assumption of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). This food is aimed a good deal higher up the scale, and the label's own table asks 265 to 360 grams a day for a dog between 20 and 30kg.