Barking Heads Adult Wet Food: Beef Waggington review

All four cans sit in our Excellent band, and so does the typical adult wet food, a category where meat content and moisture come easier than they do in a kibble. All four also finish ahead of that typical mark, each reading Excellent for protein and processing and for value, with nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding. The gaps between them are small, so let your dog's palate cast the deciding vote.

Ingredients, as declared: 85% Beef includes - Fresh Deboned Beef (60%), Beef Broth (25%), Chickpeas, Parsnip, Spinach, Apple, Orange, Sunflower Oil, Salmon Oil, Seaweed, Lucerne, Parsley, Celery, Chicory Root, Cinnamon, Turmeric, Aniseed, Minerals

Every can is assembled the same way. Fresh meat or fish makes up 60% of it, a broth named after the same animal another 25%, and the front-of-pack 85% is simply those two shares added together. Naming the broth matters, because it tells you the moisture arrived carrying flavour and a little nutrition rather than as plain water. The analysis backs the meat-first billing, with protein converting to between 40.0% and 47.6% of dry matter across the range.

The vegetable list shifts from can to can, sweet potato and peas in one, parsnip or pumpkin in another, but it stays a supporting act everywhere. Carbohydrate converts to between 6.7% and 22.0% of dry matter depending on the can. The three meat recipes sit comfortably under the 15.8% typical of adult wet food, while the salmon can runs a touch over it.

Sunflower oil and salmon oil appear in all four recipes. The salmon oil earns its keep as the omega 3 source, and most dogs are better for it. That does put fish in every can, which is the one caveat for a household steering their dog around it.

From seaweed and lucerne down to turmeric and aniseed, the back end of each label is a herb tail in trace amounts. It reads pleasantly and does no harm, but the case for these cans rests on the meat share, not on the parsley.

The added vitamin and mineral panel is short and dosed in print: vitamin D3 at 450 IU and vitamin E at 40 mg per kilo, with zinc, manganese, copper and iodine behind them. A recipe this meat-heavy brings much of its micronutrition in with the ingredients, so a brief added panel here is the construction doing its job.

Beef Waggington pairs its 60% fresh deboned beef and 25% beef broth with chickpeas, parsnip and spinach, the earthiest vegetable set of the four. Its protein converts to 47.6% of dry matter, sharing the top of the range with the lamb.

£6.75 a kilo whichever flavour you choose. The cans are 300g and are sold in cases of 10, 20, 30 or 40.

As a guide, feeding wet alone works out at between £5.39 and £6.01 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition. That comes to somewhere between 798 and 890 grams depending on the can, assuming about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75.