Alpha Spirit Mediterranean Diet Wet Sausage Multiprotein review

This sausage carries our Excellent band word. So does the typical adult wet food, wet being a category that scores well, so the band alone will not separate them. What does separate them is that the meat claim resolves completely, the analysis is protein-led, and almost nothing is left for carbohydrate once the moisture comes out. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding and protein and processing reads Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: 93% Fresh Meat (54% Pork + 39% Chicken), 5% Vegetables and Natural Spices.

Fresh meat at 93% breaks into pork at 54% and chicken at 39%, and those two figures add up to the headline exactly. That matters more than it sounds. On plenty of wet labels a meat percentage is a total with no breakdown at all, and here there is nothing left over to wonder about.

Pork is the larger share and it is still an unusual meat in dog food, which makes it useful for a dog that has grown tired of the standard proteins. Chicken sits behind it, the most familiar meat there is and easy to digest for most dogs. It is also the one most often behind a food intolerance, so a dog with a chicken problem needs a different sausage from the same maker.

The plant side is one line: 5% vegetables and natural spices. It is a small quantity and the estimated carbohydrate reflects that, converting to 4.6% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food sits at 15.8%. The trade is that you cannot see which vegetables went in, and a grouped entry like this can be reformulated without the pack changing.

Protein converts to 48.7% of dry matter and fat to 34.8%, a rich, meat-heavy analysis that suits an active adult dog and asks for careful portioning with a settled one.

Nutritional additives are printed with doses throughout: vitamin A at 7954 IU per kilo, vitamin D3 at 509, vitamin E at 159, then manganese, iron, copper, zinc and iodine in milligrams. Calcium converts to 0.61% of dry matter, a steady level for an adult dog.

Per kilo the figure is £17.11, and the sausage is sold as a 350g, as a 150g, and as four 65g sausages in one pack.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through about 515 grams a day at roughly £8.81, working from an assumed 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).