Techni-Cal Solutions: Hypoallergenic review

The two recipes finish a long way apart. Bone & Joint reaches our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food, on the strength of a meat led opening, a declared joint dose and a straightforward analysis.

Hypoallergenic lands in our Average band for structural reasons, and nothing about them is alarming. Our reading leans heavily on named animal ingredients, and this recipe deliberately has none, so it starts from a position it can never fully make up. It does not follow that this is a poor food. Seen for what it is, a plain plant based diet for the dog who has tried every meat going, it does its job.

Ingredients, as declared: Peas, rice, horse beans, rapeseed oil, pea protein, brewers yeast, beet pulp, linseed, calcium carbonate, sodium chloride, dried sea weed, hydrolysed yeast and lupine, fructo-oligosaccharides, psyllium husks.

Dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck head the Bone & Joint list, and dehydrated is the useful word there. The water has already left before the meat reaches the mixer, so the declared figure lands near what goes into the finished kibble. Protein comes out at 26.0%, which converts to 28.6% of dry matter, with fat at 13.0%. Rice, maize, maize middlings and barley between them carry a good part of the bowl. Carbohydrate estimates to 48.4% of dry matter, a little above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

The joint case is made in print rather than in marketing. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate are declared together at 1300 mg, and chicory inulin sits behind them as a prebiotic while dried whole eggs and crude lecithins round out the small print. Cold pressed salmon oil is the omega source, which pushes the omega 3 declaration to 5.37 g, and it also means this recipe carries fish alongside its three birds.

Hypoallergenic is the more unusual of the pair. Peas lead, followed by rice, horse beans, rapeseed oil and pea protein, and horse beans are broad beans, a legume, with nothing whatsoever to do with horses. There is no meat, no fish and no dairy anywhere on the list. Protein still reads 24.0%, which converts to 25.8% of dry matter, but it is plant protein, and plant protein is generally less complete than meat protein. Keep an eye on this one over months, not weeks.

The gut gets real attention in that second recipe. Beet pulp, psyllium husks and fructo-oligosaccharides all appear, with hydrolysed yeast and lupine adding flavour and dried sea weed bringing iodine. Linseed is the omega source in place of fish, and the omega 3 declaration reaches 11.41 g, the higher of the two recipes.

One limitation runs across both bags. The published additive panel stops at vitamins and fatty acids, so while choline chloride, L-carnitine at 100 mg and the B group are all there to read, the trace elements are not dosed in print. Most dogs will never be affected by that, but if you like to check zinc and copper before you buy, those figures are not on these labels.

The plant based option, with peas, rice and horse beans doing the work and no animal ingredient anywhere. Fat drops to 11.0% and fibre rises to 4.0%, with beet pulp and psyllium husks behind that figure, and vitamin E is dosed much higher at 380 mg per kilo.

Both recipes come in 2.5kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through about 224 grams a day of Bone & Joint and about 233 grams a day of Hypoallergenic. That is on the standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The Bone & Joint label asks 190 grams for a 12kg dog and 275 grams for a 20kg one. Where the two figures disagree, go by the waistline.