Amazon Complete Dry: Chicken & Rice review

Our Good band is where this food finishes, alongside the typical adult dry food. Nutritional balance and value both read Good, transparency comes back Outstanding, and protein and processing reads Average. The theme behind that last one is vagueness: poultry with no named bird, maize gluten boosting the protein, a fat source that keeps its species loose. The nutrition itself is workmanlike: protein at 30.0% of dry matter and carbohydrate at 40.6%, against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. The bowl feeds rather better than the label reads.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated Poultry Protein (25%), Rice (21%), Maize, Poultry Fat, Maize Gluten, Fresh Poultry (5%), Dried Peas, Hydrolysed Poultry Protein, Beet Pulp, Dried Carrot, Minerals, Brewer's Yeast, Linseed (0.7%), Fructo-oligosaccharides, Yeast Cell Walls (source of β-glucans and Mannan-oligosaccharides), Yucca Schidigera, Glucosamine Sulphate (0.02%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.01%)

Dehydrated poultry protein at 25% heads the list, with fresh poultry at 5% further down. Dehydrated protein is the concentrated form, so the recipe is more meat-forward than its plain presentation suggests. Poultry is the limitation here. Any farmed bird can go under that word, so you learn nothing about which one is in the bowl.

Rice at 21% and maize share the starch duties, with maize gluten topping up the protein. The gluten is the least flattering entry, a processing by-product whose protein dogs use less efficiently than meat protein, and a common device for lifting the analysis without lifting the meat content.

The extras are more thoughtful than the base. Dried peas, carrot and beet pulp add fibre and a little vegetable matter, and linseed at 0.7% brings plant omega 3. Brewer's yeast supplies B vitamins, and FOS with yeast-wall MOS gives the gut flora something to work with.

The additive panel is properly dosed, with taurine at 1300 mg/kg a notable inclusion for the heart and part of the zinc supplied as a chelate, the form generally absorbed best. Glucosamine sulphate at 0.02% and chondroitin at 0.01% close the list, at levels best read as a nod towards joints.

£1.37 a kilo, sold as a 3kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 220 grams a day by the standard maintenance estimate (110 kcal × bodyweight^0.75), which works out at about £0.30. The label's guide asks 165 to 220 grams for dogs between 12kg and 15kg, so the two are in agreement.