Lifestage Naturals Dog Food Large Breed Adult review

This one sits in our Average band, a step below the Good band that holds the middle of the adult dry shelf. What lifts it is the label, which is straightforward to follow. The fish is broken into four itemised parts and most of the plant entries carry a percentage, so you can see what you are buying. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average, and transparency does the same, which is fair enough, because the meat share is modest for a dry food and the grain content is high. As an everyday bowl for a big dog it does its job, and the label lets you see exactly what that job is.

Ingredients, as declared: Fish 36% (white fish meal 19%, fresh white fish 12%, fish gravy 3%, fish oil 2%), brown rice (18%), white rice (18%), barley, peas, chicken fat, beet pulp (3%), minerals, lucerne, seaweed (0.1%) (omega 3 supplement), Yucca schidigera (0.03%)

The fish declaration is 36%, split into white fish meal at 19%, fresh white fish at 12%, fish gravy at 3% and fish oil at 2%. That split is genuinely useful, because the meal is the concentrated part. A fresh fish is largely water, which the oven drives off, while meal goes in already dried. What the label does not tell you is which fish, and white fish covers a good deal of ground.

The plant side is led by brown rice and white rice, 18% apiece, with barley and peas behind them. Rice is easy for most dogs to digest once cooked, and barley brings fibre along with copper and selenium, though it does carry gluten. This is a grain led recipe and reads like one. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 56.9% of dry matter, where the typical adult dry food is at 46.2%.

Protein converts to 23.4% of dry matter and fat to 9.6%, a modest, lean shape better suited to a big dog with a calm routine than to one in hard work. Crude fibre is high for a kibble at 7.4% of dry matter, coming from the beet pulp at 3% along with the barley and peas. That tends to mean a bowl that satisfies without a lot of energy behind it.

Chicken fat is the entry a fish focused reader needs to catch. It is a perfectly good fat, stable and palatable. No chicken meat appears anywhere, and the recipe still is not free of poultry. Fish oil sits alongside it as the omega 3 source, and that one is doing real work for coat and joints.

What follows is a short and sensible tail. Lucerne adds fibre and minerals. Seaweed at 0.1% is named as the omega 3 supplement and doubles as a natural source of iodine. Yucca at 0.03% is the old trick for softening what a big dog leaves in the garden. The mineral premix is listed simply as minerals, with no individual doses printed against it.

£2.75 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 246 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £0.68 a day. The big dogs this bag is written for eat considerably more. The label asks 300 to 405 grams a day for a dog of 20 to 30kg, rising to 500 to 600 grams at 40 to 50kg.