Alpha Spirit Complete Wet Canned: Ham with Melon review

All eleven recipes finish level with one another in our Excellent band, so the choice here is which animal suits, with no difference in how well the tins are made. Wet food scores strongly for us and the typical adult wet food is an Excellent-band food itself, so this range sits right alongside a category that already does well. Protein and processing reads Excellent on every tin, with nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding.

Ham with Melon's largest entry is 53% pork given as lung, stomach and liver, with ham at 40% behind it, so organ meat leads that tin ahead of muscle meat. It carries the same 93% animal as the rest of the range, just arranged differently, and that arrangement is the only thing marking it out, because it lands in our Excellent band alongside the others.

Ingredients, as declared: 53% Pork (Lung, Stomach, Liver), 40% Ham, 4% Melon, Gelatin, Ground Beet Pulp, Spices and Minerals.

The 93% is the figure to look at, and it is not padded out. On most of the recipes it is one species with its offal named alongside the meat: chicken with liver and heart, beef with liver, lungs and ear, lamb with liver and lung. Naming the organs is a good sign. Organ meat is the most nutrient-dense part of any animal, and it is where a meat diet gets much of its natural vitamin content.

Protein converts to between 49.0% and 54.5% of dry matter and fat to between 32.7% and 36.4%, the spread depending on whether a given label declares its moisture. By any wet-food standard these are rich, protein-heavy tins.

Estimated carbohydrate lands at 0.8% of dry matter or lower, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. The only plant entries anywhere in the range are the named fruit at 4% and ground beet pulp, the pulp there for fibre and gut transit. Almost nothing in these tins came from anywhere but an animal.

Gelatin sets the tin and is the one animal entry with no species beside it. Spices is the other loose term, and it sits right at the end of each list where the quantities are tiny. Neither is a concern for an ordinary dog, but a strict avoidance plan should treat both as unknowns and ask the maker.

The additive panel is unusually purposeful for a wet food: zinc oxide at 30 mg/kg, then glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate both at 200 mg/kg. Those are printed figures, so you can see exactly what your dog is getting. If your vet has dosed a joint supplement for a diagnosed problem, stay with that dose and use this as the meal underneath.

Pork at 53% as lung, stomach and liver, with ham at 40% and melon at 4%. Organ meat is the biggest entry here, ahead of muscle meat, and it finishes in our Excellent band with the rest of the range.

£8.33 a kilo across every recipe, in 400 g cans sold in packs of six.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 759 to 764 grams a day, which comes to between £6.32 and £6.36. Behind those numbers is a requirement of around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). No label declares its energy, so that rests on our estimate of roughly 110 kcal per 100g.