Specific CGD-XL Senior large and giant breed review

Against the general run of adult dry foods, which settle in our Good band, this one comes in lower, in our Average band. The construction is the reason. Cereal takes the top two places, the single named meat is fish meal, and a further animal entry appears with no species attached, all of which our scoring reads directly. Set that beside what the recipe is actually trying to do and the picture softens. A large elderly dog needs calories it can handle, fibre that keeps things regular and omega 3s for the joints, and this label delivers all of that without fuss.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize protein, beet pulp, fish meal, pork fat, fish oil, animal protein hydrolysate, minerals. vitamins and trace elements (including chelated trace elements), egg powder, methionine, psyllium husk, yeast (source of mannan-oligosaccharides), lysine, taurine, threonine, tryptophan, L-carnitine, rosemary extract. With natural antioxidants (tocopherols and vitamin C).

The kibble is built on wheat with maize protein behind it, which is a cereal-first construction and reads as one. Wheat is easy to work with and forms a sturdy biscuit, and the great majority of dogs handle it perfectly well. It only becomes a live question for a dog with a grain sensitivity, and those tend to announce themselves long before old age.

The one named animal protein here is fish meal. It goes in already dried, which makes it far more concentrated than a fresh fish entry would be, so its position on the list understates how much of the protein it is really supplying.

Psyllium husk is the entry that sets this version apart. It takes up water and forms a gel, the way soluble fibre does, and that is genuinely useful in a big old dog whose stools have become inconsistent. It works with the beet pulp rather than instead of it, and crude fibre lands at 2.9% as fed.

The interesting entries for a large ageing dog are down at the end of the list. Fish oil brings marine omega 3s that older joints benefit from, taurine is there for the heart, and L-carnitine helps an ageing body hold muscle while it uses fat. A run of added amino acids, lysine and methionine among them, tops up a protein profile that is coming mostly from plants.

Fat sits at 8.9% as fed with energy at 355 kcal per 100g, a combination that suits a big dog whose exercise has dropped off while the appetite has not. Egg powder adds a little quality protein, yeast supplies mannan-oligosaccharides for the gut bacteria, and the fats are held fresh with rosemary extract, tocopherols and vitamin C.

£4.77 a kilo, sold in 4 kg and 12 kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition would take about 236 grams a day at £1.13, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The dogs actually eating this are mostly a good deal bigger, and the label asks 450 grams at 40kg and 610 grams at 60kg, so scale the daily figure to the dog you have.