Brit Care Dog Sustainable Adult Small Breed review

Our verdict lands in the Excellent band, a step up from the Good that the typical adult dry food finishes in. What separates them here is mostly protein and honesty: the meat is named, concentrated and first on the label, the carbohydrate share stays below what dry food usually runs, and the extras carry printed doses.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken (38%) (dehydrated chicken, hydrolysed chicken), oats (26%), dehydrated insect (14%), chicken fat, dried apple pulp, natural flavour, brewer's yeast, salmon oil (2%), pea flour, glucosamine (260 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (200 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (200 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (150 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (150 mg/kg), milk thistle seed (90 mg/kg), β-glucans (50 mg/kg), dried motherwort (50 mg/kg), dried sea buckthorn (50 mg/kg), Lactobacillus helveticus HA - 122 inactivated (15x109 cells/kg).

The 38% chicken is all dried and hydrolysed material, no fresh meat, which means the water has already gone and the declared share reflects the finished kibble. Protein reaches 31.1% of dry matter, generous for a small-breed maintenance food, and estimated carbohydrate stays at 39.5% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

Dehydrated insect at 14% partners the chicken. It is the range's environmental play, raised on far less land and water than livestock, and to a dog it is simply protein, unfamiliar enough to count as novel for most.

Oats at 26% do the binding, an easy grain on small stomachs, with pea flour and dried apple pulp in support.

The extras carry real doses rather than fairy dust: glucosamine at 260 mg/kg, chondroitin sulphate at 200 mg/kg, prebiotic fructo-oligosaccharides at 200 mg/kg and mannan-oligosaccharides at 150 mg/kg, plus an inactivated probiotic culture. Taurine at 1,500 mg is a thoughtful touch for small hearts.

Trace minerals come chelated and dosed, zinc at 85 mg and iron at 75 mg per kilo among them. At the tail, sea buckthorn, motherwort and milk thistle are garnish at their printed levels.

£5.71 per kilo, in bags of 1kg, 3kg and 7kg.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition the arithmetic says about 218 grams a day, around £1.24, based on roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A genuinely small dog eats far less, so scale from the bag's table and your dog's waist.