Optimum Pet Health Adult Large Breeds review

Most adult dry food ends up mid-pack, and this one lands there too, in our Good band. What holds it at that level is the plant side: potato flakes, sweet potatoes and green peas take up real room behind the chicken, and nutritional balance reads Average as a result. What lifts it is candour. Transparency reads Outstanding: the fresh and the dried meat are declared separately, and the working extras and every trace mineral carry a printed figure.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (Of Which Fresh Chicken Meat 25% And Dried Chicken 15%) (40%), Dried Potato Flakes, Dried Sweet Potatoes, Green Peas, Chicken Fat (8%), Chicken Gravy (3%), Dried Beet Pulp, Linseed (1%), Dried Antarctic Krill (1%), Minerals, Fish Oil (1%), Cellulose, Dried Brewers Yeast, Dried Chicory (A Natural Source Of Fos And Inulin) (1%), Yeast Cell Wall (A Natural Source Of Mos And Beta Glucans) (1%), Gos (Galacto Oligosaccharides) (1%), Dried Curcuma Longa, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Chondroitin Sulphate, Msm (Methylsulfonylmethane), Yucca Schidigera, Dried Melissa Officinalis, Dried Thymus Vulgaris, Dried Fenugreek, Olive Powder, Dried Rosehip, Tyndallized Lactobacillus Helveticus

Chicken is declared at 40%, printed as 25% fresh meat and 15% dried, and that split is the most useful line on the label. Most of what is in fresh chicken is water, and the oven gets rid of it. That leaves the 15% dried share to carry the finished kibble. Protein settles at 27.5% of dry matter, an ordinary adult level. Chicken gravy at 3% brings a touch more of the same bird.

Behind the meat, dried potato flakes, dried sweet potatoes and green peas do the binding, which keeps the recipe free of cereal. Carbohydrate works out at 41.7% of dry matter, under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. The plant side is present without taking over.

Chicken fat at 8% is a named fat, never an anonymous one, which is always the better way round, and it takes total fat to 17.0%. That makes for a dense bowl. The energy figure on this page is an estimate rather than a label declaration, so read it as a guide.

The digestive side is genuinely itemised. Dried chicory at 1% supplies FOS and inulin, yeast cell wall at 1% supplies MOS, galacto-oligosaccharides get a 1% line of their own, and beet pulp with a little cellulose provides the coarse fibre. A tyndallized Lactobacillus closes the list, a heat-treated culture that does its work without having to survive the bag.

Dried Antarctic krill at 1% and fish oil at 1% bring the long chain marine omega 3s, and linseed at 1% covers the plant form. Chicken being the only meat makes this an easy recipe to reason about for a dog that reacts to other animals, though those two marine entries mean it cannot be called fish free.

Glucosamine hydrochloride, chondroitin sulphate and MSM all appear towards the end of the ingredients, and their position tells you they are present in small amounts. No dose is printed for any of the three. For a heavy frame they are background support, not a treatment.

Each trace mineral arrives in two forms at once: a sulphate paired with an amino acid chelate. Both halves are dosed: zinc at 20 plus 30 mg, iron at 15 plus 30 mg, manganese at 30 plus 10 mg and copper at 10 plus 3 mg per kilo. Chelated minerals are generally the easier form for a dog to take up. Taurine, vitamin C at 100 mg and vitamin E at 450 mg are all dosed in print as well.

£3.20 a kilo, sold in 4kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 230 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.74 a day. A large breed at the top end of the scale gets through a good deal more, so portion for the dog you actually have.