Carnilove Active Adult Small Breed review

This recipe finishes in our Excellent band, a level the typical adult dry food, which settles in our Good band, rarely approaches. The difference is construction: animal ingredients dominate the list, the carbohydrate load is unusually light for a kibble, and every added mineral is dosed in print. Nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding here, with protein and processing reading Good and value in step with the food's own Excellent band, so the strength is broadly based rather than resting on one trick.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh salmon (26%), turkey protein (23%), yellow peas, beef fat (13%), turkey hydrolysed protein (9%), hydrolysed liver (3%), pea protein, linseed, salmon oil (1%), chickpeas, pumpkin, dried apple pulp, carrots, potassium chloride, pea flour, dried sea buckthorn (0.2%), dried ginger root (0.1%), dried blueberries (0.1%), dried rosemary (0.1%), dried cranberries (0.1%), dried thyme (0.1%), hydrolysed crustacean shells (source of glucosamine, 0.022%), chicory root (source of fructo-oligosaccharides, 0.0163%), cartilage extract (source of chondroitin, 0.014%), brewer's yeast (source of mannan-oligosaccharides, 0.013%), Mojave yucca (0.0085%).

The animal side is a tag team. Fresh salmon at 26% brings the headline, but fresh fish is mostly water before the oven does its work. Much of the protein in the finished kibble therefore comes from turkey protein at 23% and hydrolysed turkey protein at 9%. The result is a genuinely meat-led biscuit: protein converts to 38.9% of dry matter with fat at 20.0%.

Beef fat at 13% is the energy source and a big part of why the food reaches 391 kcal per 100g. Together with salmon oil at 1% it keeps the recipe rich, which is exactly what a hard-working small dog needs and exactly what a sedentary one does not.

Yellow peas, chickpeas, pea protein and pea flour handle the binding, and there is no grain or white potato anywhere on the list. Pea protein and pea flour do nudge the protein figure upward from the plant side, worth knowing if you want every point of that figure coming from animals.

Hydrolysed liver at 3% is there for flavour; broken-down liver is one of the most persuasive palatants in dry food and a help with fussy small mouths. From sea buckthorn to thyme, the berry and herb tail is printed with honest fractions. They show it is garnish, and nothing in the recipe leans on it.

The extras aimed at joints and digestion, glucosamine from crustacean shells at 0.022%, chondroitin at 0.014% and mannan-oligosaccharides from brewer's yeast, arrive at trace doses. They are welcome touches, not working therapy, and the food's real case rests on its meat and its minerals, with taurine dosed at a generous 1,500 mg per kilo and every trace element declared.

£7.49 a kilo, sold in 1.5kg and 4kg bags.

Fed to a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, that comes to about 215 grams and £1.61 a day, working from the standard maintenance estimate of around 840 kcal daily (110 × bodyweight^0.75). A small breed will naturally need far less; the label feeds dogs between 3kg and 6kg at 64 to 108 grams a day.