Techni-Cal Lifestages Senior & Weight Control review

This recipe settles in our Good band, the band the typical adult dry food occupies too. Its virtues are practical ones. Fat at 11.0% of dry matter is genuinely low for a kibble, and L-carnitine is present at the level weight control diets tend to use. Beet pulp is high enough up the list to keep a hungry older dog feeling fed, and the meat entry still leads.

The other half of that trade is what stops it climbing further. Taking fat out of a recipe means putting starch in, and at 52.7% of dry matter the carbohydrate carries a great deal of this bowl. The label also stops short of publishing its trace mineral doses. An older dog needs to eat a decent volume without taking on too much energy, and for that dog the trade is the whole point rather than the problem.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck, maize, wheat, beet pulp, barley, chicken fat, salmon oil (cold pressed), brewers yeast, linseed, dried apple, sodium chloride, fructo-oligosaccharides.

The recipe is built around one number: 10.0% fat, converting to 11.0% of dry matter, comfortably below what the brand's standard adult recipe carries. That is the lever that brings energy down to 355 kcal per 100 grams, and it is done honestly, by leaving fat out rather than by bulking the bag with something inert.

What fills the space is starch and fibre. Maize takes second place with wheat third and barley fifth, and beet pulp is pushed up to fourth, which is unusually high and clearly deliberate. Beet pulp is the fibre that firms a stool and slows a meal down. Putting it above the barley is how a recipe like this keeps an older dog from finishing dinner and immediately asking about dinner. Fibre converts to 3.3% of dry matter as a result.

L-carnitine at 100 mg is the other weight control entry. It is an amino acid the body makes for itself, and its job is to shuttle fat into the cells that will burn it. Almost every recipe written for a dog on a diet carries it for that reason. Alongside it, choline chloride at 1900 mg is the most in the Lifestages range, and choline supports the liver in handling the fat it is being asked to move.

The meat is a single dehydrated entry covering chicken, turkey and duck. The water is taken out of that meat before it reaches the mixer, so leading with it means something. Turkey in particular is a sensible bird for a recipe of this kind, being leaner than chicken. The limitation here is the one the whole Lifestages range shares. Three birds under one heading cannot tell you the proportions. Which of the three a sensitive dog objects to is not something this label can settle.

The finishing touches are modest and useful. Cold pressed salmon oil and linseed together give 4.36 g of omega 3, which matters more in an older dog than a young one. Brewers yeast adds B vitamins and palatability for an appetite that may have gone off a little. Dried apple brings pectin, and fructo-oligosaccharides at the end feed the gut bacteria. Vitamin E is dosed at 300 mg. The trace elements are the one gap: they are in the food, since a complete diet cannot be sold without them, but the amounts are not printed.

Sold in 2.5 kg and 12 kg bags.

As a portion guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition works out at around 237 grams a day, using roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label is more cautious, asking 215 grams for a 16kg dog. A recipe written for dogs that need to lose a little would err that way. Start nearer the label and let the waistline guide you from there.