Collards Adult Wet Can Food: Duck review

All three cans reach our Outstanding band, a step above the typical adult wet food, which is no small thing in a strong field. The duck and turkey finish slightly ahead of the chicken, though all three land within a few points of each other. Choose by the meat your dog fancies rather than by the score.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck 50%, Blueberries 4%, Courgette 4%, Pumpkin 4%, Vitamins and Minerals, Sunflower Oil, Salmon Oil, Flax seed Oil, Dried Kelp, Dried Rosemary, Dried Chicory Root, Mannanoligosaccharides (Prebiotic MOS), Dried Nettle, Green Tea, Dried Rosehip, Glucosamine, Chondroitin Sulphate, Marigold.

Half of every can is the named meat, and the analysis agrees with the headline: protein converts to between 42.1% and 45.0% of dry matter across the range. Carbohydrate barely features, converting to between 3.5% and 12.2% of dry matter depending on the flavour, where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%. These are meat-led cans with the vegetables in a supporting role.

Each flavour carries its own vegetable and fruit set at 4% apiece. No single list is repeated across the range, and that is a nicer touch than it first looks. The pairings are chosen to sit alongside the meat, and they bring a little natural fibre without diluting the animal share.

Three oils share the fat work: sunflower, salmon and flaxseed. Between them they cover the omega spread. The salmon oil does put fish in every flavour, something to weigh up for a dog kept off fish.

The tail of each label is a small functional set. Dried kelp, chicory root and a named prebiotic in MOS lead it, with nettle, green tea, rosehip and marigold behind them at trace level. Glucosamine and chondroitin appear too, with no dose printed beside either. Treat them as a gesture towards joints, not a measured therapeutic amount.

The added vitamin and mineral panel is short. Every entry in it carries a figure, from the vitamins down to the selenium and iodine. A can built on half meat starts with much of its micronutrition already in the food, and this panel tops it up rather than props it up.

Duck at 50%, partnered with blueberries, courgette and pumpkin, and rosemary as the herb. A dog grown weary of the everyday poultries can move sideways to duck. This can also keeps carbohydrate low, converting to 6.5% of dry matter.

Every flavour comes in a 390 g can.

These are light, high-moisture recipes, so portions run generous. As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs between 988 and 1070 grams a day depending on the flavour, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is upwards of two cans a day fed on its own, so many households will pair it with a dry food and let the waistline set the split.