Canine Choice Adult Medium: Lamb review

Chicken, lamb and salmon all land in our Excellent band here, a step up from the Good band where the typical adult dry food finishes. The three finish close together, so base the choice on how your dog has got on with each meat.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh lamb (40%), dehydrated lamb (15%), sweet potato (13.5%), peas (7%), hydrolyzed lamb liver (5%), apple pulp (5%), dehydrated carrot (0.32% equivalent to 3% carrots), dehydrated cranberry (0.08% equivalent to 0.75% cranberries),chicken fat, pea protein, brewer's yeast, fish oil, minerals, chicory (source of fos), mannan-oligosaccharides (mos), camomile, parsley, rosehips, sea algae, rosemary, cloves, glucosamine (300 mg/kg), cartilage (a source of chondroitin 200 mg/kg), yucca schidigera.

Each recipe pairs a large fresh meat entry with a dehydrated one, and that pairing matters. Fresh meat is mostly water before cooking, so the dehydrated share carries much of the finished kibble's protein. The analysis lands where you would hope. The chicken reaches 30.4% protein on a dry matter basis, with the lamb and salmon at 29.3%. Estimated carbohydrate runs between 39.9% and 40.7%, against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Binding is the job of sweet potato and peas, with apple pulp, carrot and cranberry behind them. No grain appears anywhere in the range.

The joint pair is dosed rather than dusted, with glucosamine at 300 mg/kg and chondroitin at 200 mg/kg from cartilage, while chicory and MOS supply prebiotic fibre for the gut. Hydrolysed liver at 5% is there as a natural flavour, the trick kitchens use to keep fussy eaters interested.

Chicken fat is the cooking fat across the range and fish oil supplies omega 3s, which is good news for skin and coat but does mean chicken and fish reach every bowl, including the lamb's. Worth knowing if you are choosing lamb to keep another meat out.

The herb tail, camomile through cloves, sits at trace level and is seasoning rather than substance. The declared meat share is what this food stands on.

The lamb runs highest on fresh meat at 40%, with 15% dehydrated behind it, and its label prints a Bacillus subtilis probiotic on top of the standard recipe. A natural pick for dogs that find poultry-led foods hard work, though chicken fat still features further down the list.

The chicken and salmon are £5.60 a kilo and the lamb £3.77, with the chicken sold in 1.5kg and 10kg bags and the lamb and salmon in 10kg.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, expect roughly 218 grams a day. That comes to about £1.22 on the chicken or salmon and £0.82 on the lamb, working from a maintenance estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Let the waistline arbitrate against the bag's own table.