Burgess Sensitive Adult: Scottish Salmon & Rice review

All three flavours hold our Good band, keeping pace with the typical adult dry food. The salmon reads best of them, despite a modest fish inclusion and the unnamed poultry meal behind it. Across all three the construction tells the same story: rice does a lot of the carrying, with carbohydrate converting to 50.0% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical, and protein sitting at the gentle end. That is not a hidden flaw; it is the design.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, Salmon (26% inc Salmon 13%, Salmon Meal 13%), Poultry Meal, Poultry Fat, Dried Beet Pulp (4.5%), Minerals, Poultry Gravy, Fish Oil (1%), Dried Alfalfa (1%), Lignocellulose, Chicory Root Extract (as a source of fructo-oligosaccharides (prebiotic FOS 0.18%)), Yucca Schidigera (0.022%).

Rice leads every flavour, with the named meat arriving second as a meal. Meat meal goes into the mix dry and concentrated, so an inclusion of 26% to 28.5% carries more protein than fresh meat at the same printed percentage. Protein still only converts to between 20.9% and 25.3% of dry matter. These are gentle recipes by design rather than meaty ones.

Beet pulp brings the soluble fibre and chicory root extract the prebiotic FOS. Yucca sits at trace level, a plant extract with a long reputation for softening stool odour.

Fish oil at 1% runs through every flavour as the omega source, joined in the turkey by linseed and a little seaweed.

The vaguest entries are the poultry fat and poultry gravy, which could come from any farmed bird and may change batch to batch. That flexibility is common in longstanding recipes and harmless for most dogs, but it is exactly what a strict exclusion diet cannot work around.

Taurine appears at 1,500 mg/kg in the lamb and 1000 mg/kg in the salmon, a heart-supportive amino acid worth having in print; the turkey flavour goes without.

Salmon at 26%, split between fresh salmon and salmon meal at 13% each, with unnamed poultry meal stepping in behind it. That extra animal family is what separates this flavour from its siblings, and it still holds our Good band alongside them; it also carries taurine at 1000 mg/kg.

Every flavour is £2.83 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 12.5kg bags.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition the daily serving runs from about 230 to 239 grams depending on flavour. That is between £0.65 and £0.68 a day, based on the standard 840 kcal maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75).