Country Dog Premium Grain Free Adult 1+: Chicken & Potato review

Both recipes come out in our Good band, and the typical adult dry food occupies the same ground. The salmon reads a shade ahead of the chicken, largely because it declares more animal and asks less of its potato, and it reads Good on protein and processing where the chicken reads Average. Nothing exotic is doing the work in either case. A large named meat share, a carbohydrate load kept in check and a label willing to print its percentages will carry a food this far on their own.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 35% (Chicken Meal 25%, Freshly Prepared Chicken 10%), Potato (27%), Sweet Potato (19%), Chicken Fat (7%), Beet Pulp (2.8%), Dried Brewers Yeast (2.5%), Flaxseed (2.5%), Chicken Gravy Minerals, Seaweed, Prebiotic Mannan Oligosacharide (0.5%), Prebiotic Fructo Oligosaccharide (0.5%), Yucca Extract (0.05%), Glucosamine Sulphate (0.045%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.015%), Cranberry (0.01%).

Both recipes open with a named animal and then print the split between the dried meal and the freshly prepared meat, which is the detail that lets you read them properly. Fresh meat carries a lot of water, and the oven takes it off, so the meal is the half that survives into the kibble. In both bags the meal is comfortably the bigger share, which is why the headline figures translate into real protein rather than a good first impression.

The binding in both recipes comes from potato and sweet potato, and neither list has a cereal on it. Sweet potato brings fibre and a slower release along with its starch, and beet pulp adds the soft, mostly soluble fibre that helps keep stools firm without asking anything of the dog.

The joint pair is declared to the last decimal on both labels, with glucosamine and chondroitin sitting quietly under the minerals. These are cartilage building blocks rather than quick fixes, and they belong on a food written for the long haul, which is exactly the audience these two bags name.

Seaweed appears in both recipes and earns its place as a mineral source, iodine above all, which the thyroid runs on. It is used in the small amounts that suit it, and cranberry at 0.01% and yucca extract are finishing touches of the same sort.

One honest caveat sits in the additive panel. Zinc arrives partly as a chelate of protein hydrolysates in both bags, and those hydrolysates are not tied to any species in print. A dog on a strict exclusion plan cannot be certain which protein they are meeting. For everyday feeding it changes very little, and the chelated form is the one a dog absorbs most easily. Selenium comes as sodium selenite, the workaday form permitted in the EU and the one most makers reach for.

Chicken at 35%, split 25% chicken meal and 10% freshly prepared chicken, over potato at 27% and sweet potato at 19%. Chicken fat at 7% takes fat to 14% and energy to 370 kcal per 100g, making this the livelier of the two bags in the bowl. It is also the one carrying the prebiotic pair, mannan oligosaccharide and fructo oligosaccharide at 0.5% each. Dried brewers yeast and flaxseed sit alongside them at 2.5% apiece. Moisture is not declared, so the dry matter column assumes the 8% a kibble usually holds.

Both recipes are sold in 2kg and 15kg bags.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, working from a daily target of roughly 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to about 227 grams a day of the chicken and about 257 grams of the salmon. Portion by the dog, not by the number.