Dougie's Run Free Chicken Cold Pressed review

This food holds our Good band, and the typical cold-pressed food holds it too. Cold pressing counts for no more than any other method on our scale, and this one settles in the lower reaches of that band rather than at its head. The named chicken lead and a label you can read without a glossary do the earning here, while the cereal-heavy base is what keeps it from pushing further up the band.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (36%) Wheat, Barley, Peas, Linseed, Cane Molasses, Beet Pulp, Chicken Oil, Chicken Gravy, Vitamins And Minerals, Lucerne, Herbs (Parsley, Chicory, Kelp, Peppermint, Basil, Fennel, Thyme, Aniseed, Yucca And Rosemary).

Cold pressing is the headline before any single ingredient gets a look in. The pellets are pressed at temperatures far below what conventional kibble is cooked at. Wet them and they crumble where kibble would swell. Owners of gulpers and sensitive eaters are loyal to the format for exactly that. Dougie's has built its whole range on the method.

Chicken leads at 36% and the animal side never leaves it: chicken oil supplies the fat and chicken gravy the coating. Chicken is therefore the only meat anywhere in the recipe, handy knowledge for a dog with a settled favourite. Protein converts to 25.0% of dry matter, a modest figure, but one declared without padding from unnamed animal proteins.

Wheat, barley and peas carry the bulk, and carbohydrate converts to 51.1% of dry matter, a step above the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food. Naming wheat outright is more honest than the vague cereals entry many labels prefer, and worth registering if your dog is among the minority that needs to steer around it. Beet pulp adds gentle fibre and linseed looks after the omega fats.

Cane molasses is the label's most unusual entry. In a cold-pressed recipe it helps bind the pellet and sweetens the deal for fussier noses, and it is also a sugar, which some owners prefer to keep to a minimum. It sits mid-list, not down at the tail, so it earns a proper mention here.

The vitamins and minerals are declared inline without printed doses. Dougie's does state across its range that the enrichment comes from natural sources including seaweed, green lipped mussel, chia seeds, green tea extract, chondroitin sulphate and chicory pulp. The mussel is the one to register if strict shellfish avoidance is the reason you reached for a chicken recipe. Lucerne and the herb tail, parsley through rosemary, sit at trace level and read as character rather than nutrition.

£4.60 a kilo. It comes in 2kg and 10kg bags, and in a four-pack of the 2kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. On this food's estimated energy content that is roughly 255 grams, or £1.17 a day. The label's own low-activity guide for a 12 to 16kg dog is 190 to 235 grams a day.