Cooper & Co Fussy review

This recipe reaches our Good band. The middle of the adult dry market sits on that same rung. What earns it is discipline rather than fireworks. One species does the whole animal job, and every part of it is declared with its own percentage. Moisture is printed, not assumed, and there is no unnamed fat, no vague meal and nothing on the list that has to be taken on trust. Only the carbohydrate estimate of 53.2% of dry matter keeps it from sitting higher still. For a dog who needs to be tempted, that combination of a clean label and a strong smell is hard to argue with.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon 50% (including Freshly Prepared Salmon 36%, Dried Salmon 12% & Salmon Gravy 2%), Sweet Potato, Tapioca, Beet Pulp, Salmon Oil (5%), Brewers Yeast, Minerals, Vitamins, Dried Spinach, Fennel, Fructooligosaccharides (95 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (25 mg/kg).

Every part of the 50% salmon headline is printed on the label, and most labels do not go that far. Freshly prepared salmon at 36% carries a lot of water that leaves during cooking, so the dried salmon at 12% is doing much of the real protein work in the finished kibble. Salmon gravy at 2% rounds it off. Protein converts to 23.9% of dry matter, a moderate figure that suits an ordinary adult dog rather than an athlete.

The 5% salmon oil is the entry that gives this recipe its character. Marine oils supply omega 3 in the long chain forms that a dog's body can put straight to work on skin and coat, without the conversion step that plant sources need. It is also the reason the kibble smells as strongly as it does, which is precisely what a picky eater responds to.

Sweet potato and tapioca share the carbohydrate duty. Sweet potato brings fibre and pigment along with the starch, while tapioca is essentially pure starch drawn from the cassava root and contributes very little beyond energy. Together they push carbohydrate to 53.2% of dry matter, above the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. That is the honest trade for keeping the animal side down to one clean species.

The fermentable fibre is beet pulp, and both prebiotics carry printed doses, fructooligosaccharides at 95 mg per kilo and mannanoligosaccharides at 25 mg per kilo. Those are small figures, so read them as a gentle nudge to the gut flora and not the centre of the recipe. Brewer's yeast adds natural B vitamins, with dried spinach and fennel making up the short botanical tail.

On the mineral side the analysis does more talking than the ingredient list. Ash comes in at 7.0% and calcium at 1.52% of dry matter, a comfortable, unremarkable level for an adult dog. The label names vitamins and minerals as headings without giving individual doses, so there is nothing to weigh entry by entry. The analysis itself reads as steady, and the recipe around it is unusually easy to read.

£7.00 a kilo, with 1.5kg and 10kg bags on the shelf.

For a 15kg adult in moderate condition, about 234 grams a day covers it on an assumed requirement of roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £1.64 a day. The maker's own table asks 150 to 255 grams for dogs between 10kg and 20kg, so treat the two as bookends and feed to the ribs.