Ava Breed Health Dachshund Wet: Adult Pâté Pouches review

This one settles into our Good band. The middle of the adult wet shelf sits a band higher, in Excellent, and the distance comes down to how much of the pouch is meat and how much is starch, water and bulking fibre. None of that is a worry for a healthy dog, and none of it is hidden.

In its favour, the analysis converts well. Protein reads 44.3% of dry matter, fat is held back to 25.6%, and estimated carbohydrate at 18.3% is a whisker above the 15.8% the typical adult wet food runs at. Add a declared energy figure and inclusions printed down to 0.001% and this is a label that shows more of itself than most wet recipes bother to.

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 sole meat, listed in its fresh form and given a percentage rather than folded into a category word. For most dogs chicken is easy going and thoroughly digestible. One thing to hold in mind: chicken is fed so widely that more dogs turn out to be intolerant of it than of any other meat. A dachshund that has already reacted to chicken elsewhere will react to it here.

Sweet potato at 8% and tapioca starch supply the carbohydrate. Tapioca is pure starch drawn from the cassava root, useful for holding a pâté together and for keeping the recipe free of cereal, but it brings almost nothing nutritionally on its own. Sweet potato is the better of the two, carrying fibre and vitamins alongside its starch.

L-carnitine at 320 mg is the ingredient the breed name is really pointing at. It plays a central part in how the body moves fat into the cells that burn it, which is why it appears so often in diets written around weight. At 320 mg it is a working dose, printed on the label. Paired with fat kept to 25.6% of dry matter and a light 91 kcal per 100g, the recipe is clearly built for a dog that should stay lean.

Cellulose fibre at 1.5% works to the same end. It is refined plant fibre that adds bulk and structure without adding energy, which helps a dog feel fed on a smaller portion. It is an industrial ingredient rather than a wholesome-sounding one, and worth recognising for what it is, but in a recipe with this purpose it is doing a job that makes sense.

The rest is small and deliberate. Prebiotic yeast at 0.055% and chicory root extract at 0.02% between them supply mannan-oligosaccharides and fructo-oligosaccharides, both of which encourage the useful bacteria in the gut. Trace levels of yucca, cranberry, pomegranate and green tea close the list. Vitamin E comes in at 95 mg. Protein hydrolysates carry the chelated trace elements, a form the gut tends to take up more readily than a plain mineral salt.

£12.74 a kilo, in 85 g pouches sold in packs of 12.

The standard day rate is worked from a 15kg reference dog, which overshoots a dachshund by a fair way, so the label's own table is the one to work from. It puts a dog of 5 to 8 kg at 382.5 to 510 grams a day, which comes to between four and six pouches.