Ava Breed Health Chihuahua Wet: Adult Pâté Pouches review

Good is where this recipe settles, one band under the middle of the adult wet shelf. The gap is a matter of construction, and there is nothing troubling in the pouch. A named animal at 35% is respectable without being generous, and behind it sit sweet potato, tapioca starch and a refined fibre, none of which bring a great deal beyond starch and bulk.

What the label does very well is declare. Inclusions are printed all the way down to 0.001%, the energy figure is the maker's own rather than our estimate, and every entry in the additive panel carries a dose. The analysis reads sensibly for a small adult dog too. Protein converts to 38.9% of dry matter, fat to 29.3% and estimated carbohydrate to 17.9%, close to the 15.8% typical for adult wet food.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (35%), Sweet Potato (8%), Cellulose Fibre (1.5%), Sunflower Oil (0.8%), Minerals, Tapioca Starch, Yeast Extract, Fish Oil (0.5%), Yeast (as a source of Prebiotic Mannan-oligosaccharides and Beta-glucans)(0.055%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructo-oligosaccharides)(0.02%), Yucca Extract (0.005%), Cranberry Extract (0.002%), Pomegranate Extract (0.001%), Green Tea Extract (0.001%)

Chicken at 35% is the only meat here, and it is a sensible choice for a small dog: highly palatable, easy on most digestions and a genuinely good source of protein. There is one caveat, and it is about popularity. More dogs are fed chicken than any other meat. That also makes it the meat dogs most often prove intolerant of.

Sweet potato at 8% is the visible carbohydrate and tapioca starch is the invisible one. Tapioca comes from the cassava root and brings starch and very little else, which is why it turns up so often in grain-free recipes as a binder and a filler. Sweet potato at least carries fibre and vitamins along with its starch.

Cellulose fibre at 1.5% is the entry that most repays explanation. It is refined plant fibre, a pale odourless powder you would never spot in a vegetable drawer. It is used because it adds bulk and stool structure without adding calories. That is a reasonable thing to want in a small dog's food. It is still a long way from the fibre a whole vegetable would bring, and here it pushes crude fibre to 7.2% of dry matter.

The extras are where Ava concentrates its attention. Yeast at 0.055% brings mannan-oligosaccharides and beta-glucans, and chicory root extract at 0.02% brings fructo-oligosaccharides. Both are food for the bacteria that work further down the gut. Yucca extract, cranberry, pomegranate and green tea follow at trace level, and green tea in particular brings antioxidant catechins, though at 0.001% none of these is doing heavy lifting.

Taurine is added rather than assumed, which is a thoughtful inclusion in a small-breed recipe, and vitamin E arrives at 95 mg. The trace elements are chelated to protein hydrolysates, a form that is generally absorbed better than the plain sulphate salts, with zinc at 37.6 mg leading iron, manganese, copper and iodine.

£12.74 a kilo, in 85 g pouches sold twelve to a pack.

A day rate on the standard 15kg reference dog would describe an animal several times the size of the dogs this recipe is made for. The label's own guide is the more useful figure here. It puts a dog of 3 to 4 kg at 255 to 297.5 grams a day, which is three pouches and a little over.