Dr Clauders Grain Free Wildlife: Lamb review

Our Good band holds all three of these, the same band the typical adult dry food occupies. The construction is what earns it. A named species does 45% of the recipe in two forms, the plant side stops at potato and peas instead of sprawling, and enough percentages are declared to read the label properly. There is barely anything between the three of them, so the animal is what should decide it.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb meat 30%, lamb protein (dried) 15%, potato starch, potato starch, potato protein, sweet potatoes (dried), peas (dried), beet pulp, tapioca (dried), chicken fat, vegetarian protein hydrolysate, tomato paste (dried), cranberry (dried), blueberries (dried) yeast, chicory powder, yucca-shidigera powder, nettle (dried), blackberry leaf (dried), yarrow (dried), fennel (dried), cumin (dried), chamomile blossoms (dried), mistletoe (dried), gentian root (dried), centaury (dried).

Every recipe here names its animal twice, once as meat and once as a dried protein of the same species, and the two together account for 45% of the label. The dried half carries most of the protein into the finished kibble, since fresh meat leaves the greater part of its weight behind in the oven.

Potato does the binding throughout, as flour in the duck and as starch in the lamb and the salmon, with peas behind it. Potato starch is exactly what it sounds like, a pure binder with little else to offer, so the nutrition has to come from the meat and not from the base. That is the right way round for a dog.

All three declare their protein hydrolysate as vegetarian, which is a genuinely useful piece of labelling. An animal hydrolysate that names no species is the entry that quietly undoes a single-species promise, and there is none of that here.

The herb run that closes each list, nettle, blackberry leaf, yarrow, fennel, cumin, chamomile blossoms, mistletoe, gentian root and centaury, is traditional European seasoning sitting at trace level. It gives the range its character. The heavy lifting is left to the meat.

Ash runs between 8.5% and 9.2% of dry matter across the three recipes, with calcium from 1.63% to 2.17%. That mineral load is normal for recipes leaning on dried meat, and all three labels are written for adults, which is where those figures belong.

The biggest meat headline of the three, with lamb meat at 30% and dried lamb protein at 15%, and the widest plant base behind it: potato starch, potato protein, dried sweet potatoes, peas and tapioca. Tapioca is close to pure starch and earns its place as a binder rather than as nutrition. Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter with fat at 16.3%, the richest bowl here, and calcium at 2.17% is the highest in the range. Chicken fat appears on this label too.

Per kilo, the duck and the salmon are £6.77 and the lamb is £7.14, each sold in 2 kg and 11.5 kg bags.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to between £1.65 and £1.68 a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The calorie figures behind those numbers are estimated from each analysis, since none of the three labels prints one.