Ava Breed Health Pug Dry review

This recipe and the typical adult dry food share our Good band, so the scoring puts it level with the shelf. The design intent is anything but random, though: the fibre, the restrained energy and the fat-burning supplement all point the same way, at a small breed that gains weight easily. What holds it back is mostly the meat side, with the fish declared at family level and several entries, the peas among them, carrying no percentage at all, so protein and processing reads Average.

Ingredients, as declared: Fish 39.5% (Fish Meal (20.5%), White Fish (19.0%)), Potato (17.3%), Sweet Potato (15.6%), Salmon Oil (7.7%), Beet Pulp (7.0%), Cellulose (2.6%), Brewers Yeast, Salmon Stock (2.2%), Peas, Sunflower Oil, Minerals, Egg, Chicory Inulin (a source of Prebiotic Fructooligosaccharides (0.2%)), Yeasts (as a source of Beta-glucans and Prebiotic Mannanoligosaccharide) (0.14%), Glucosamine (0.07%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.05%), Mint (0.04%), Yucca Extract (0.025%), Cranberry Extract (0.018%), Pomegranate Extract (0.009%), Green Tea Extract (0.009%)

Fish leads at 39.5%, split between fish meal at 20.5% and white fish at 19%, with salmon stock at 2.2% behind them for flavour. Meal is the concentrated, water-off form, so it does more of the protein work than its position suggests. Only the white fish share carries any species information, and the rest is declared simply as fish, which can vary with the catch.

Potato at 17.3% and sweet potato at 15.6% share the starch and there is no grain in the recipe. Peas appear further down without a percentage, and beet pulp at 7% works alongside cellulose at 2.6% to take declared fibre to 6%, a deliberately high setting for a food built around portion control.

Cellulose deserves its honest description: purified plant fibre that contributes bulk and very little else. In a recipe aimed at dogs that eat faster than they burn, that bulk is the point. Understand it as filler with a purpose, and not as nourishment.

The oils are where the recipe shows its ambition. Salmon oil at 7.7% is a generous marine omega 3 inclusion for a dry food, sunflower oil adds skin-friendly linoleic acid, and between them a pug's coat and skin folds have plenty to draw on.

L-carnitine at 300mg supports fat metabolism, mint at 0.04% is a small nod to breath, and the chicory and yeast prebiotics look after the gut. Trace minerals arrive largely chelated and fully dosed. The extracts of cranberry, pomegranate and green tea at the very end are garnish.

£7.19 a kilo, in a 1.5kg bag.

On the usual maintenance arithmetic of roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult in moderate condition would need about 246 grams, or £1.77 a day. The pugs this is written for eat far less; the label asks only 105 to 130 grams for a dog of 6kg to 8kg.