Techni-Cal Lifestages Large Breed Adult review

Most everyday adult dry food we look at finishes in our Good band, and this recipe joins it there. It gets there by being sensible, not showy. Four named meats head the list, three gentler cereals stand in for wheat, fish meal supplies marine protein, and a joint pair closes it out for the frame it is written for.

What holds it where it is sits in the analysis. Protein converts to 23.1% of dry matter and carbohydrate to 52.5%, so the plant side is carrying more of this bowl than the meat first opening would suggest. The trace mineral amounts never appear on the label. For a big, steady dog in the middle of its life, eating a large volume without a lot of richness in it, that is a perfectly reasonable trade.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated chicken, turkey, duck and pork, rice, barley, oats, chicken fat, pork fat, fish meal, beet pulp, salmon oil (cold pressed), sodium chloride, fructo-oligosaccharides, potassium chloride, glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate.

Dehydrated chicken, turkey, duck and pork opens the list as a single entry. Dehydrated is the operative word here, since the water has gone before the meat reaches the mixer. The top of the list is therefore concentrated protein, and not a fresh meat entry that would shed much of its bulk in the oven. Pork is the interesting addition. Pork appears so seldom in dog food that it will be a new protein for plenty of dogs. Grouping it with three birds under one heading does mean the label never shows how much of it is in there.

The carrying is done by rice, barley and oats, and choosing them over wheat and maize is the clearest difference between this recipe and the standard adult one. All three are readily digested once cooked, oats bring useful fibre with a spread of minerals, and barley adds slow release starch. Barley does carry gluten, so a dog that needs a strictly gluten free bowl is better served by a grain free recipe. For the far larger group of dogs that simply do better away from wheat, this is a friendly set of cereals.

Halfway down the list, fish meal does real work, bringing marine amino acids and minerals in a dried, concentrated form. Chicken fat and pork fat supply the added fat, with cold pressed salmon oil following. Few recipes at this end of the market bother with an oil of that grade, and pressing it without heat leaves more of the omega 3 intact. The label's own figures put omega 3 at 1.98 g and omega 6 at 14.15 g.

Glucosamine and chondroitin close the list. They are the two supplements most often added to large breed recipes, and having them on the list says plainly what this food is for, even though no amount is printed for either. Treat them as a helpful extra riding along with a food chosen for other reasons rather than as a joint programme in themselves.

Beet pulp handles the fibre, fructo-oligosaccharides feed the useful gut bacteria, and potassium chloride tops up a mineral that a large dog drinking and passing a lot of water can run short of. The vitamin panel is fully dosed, with vitamin E at 150 mg and choline chloride at 1200 mg among the entries. The trace elements are the gap. Zinc, copper and manganese are all in the food, but the amounts are not published, and printed doses are one of the things that separate a good label from a fair one.

Sold in 2.5 kg and 12 kg bags.

As a portion guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition would need about 234 grams a day, working from roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Most dogs eating this recipe are a good deal bigger than that, and the label's own table asks 395 grams for a 30kg dog and 660 grams for a 60kg one.