Dr John Flake review

Our scoring puts Dr John Flake in the Average band, a step below the Good band that the typical adult dry food reaches. The distance is built into the recipe rather than hidden inside it. Grain holds the top two places, protein converts to 19.8% of dry matter, and the animal entry names its species for only part of what it contributes. Nutritional balance reads Poor and protein and processing Average, while transparency reads Good, because the label at least prints the chicken percentage and keeps its list plain. None of that stops a healthy adult dog doing perfectly well on it.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize, poultry meal (11% chicken), chicken fat, chicken gravy, minerals, linseed, yeast, yucca extract

Wheat and maize hold the front of the list, which tells you where most of the energy is coming from. Carbohydrate works out at 63.2% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, and protein finishes at 19.8% of dry matter, gentle by kibble standards. Wheat causes more food intolerance in dogs than any other ingredient. If your dog has itched or had a rumbling gut before now, test wheat first.

Poultry meal with 11% chicken declared is the animal side of the recipe. The drying and concentrating happen before the meal goes into the mix. Gram for gram it therefore carries far more protein than fresh meat that has yet to meet the oven, and that concentration is doing real work here. The limit is the word poultry, which covers any domestic bird, so the label pins down the chicken share and leaves the rest open.

Chicken fat and chicken gravy follow, both named to an animal rather than hidden behind a category term, and both there as much for taste as for nutrition. A named fat is always the better read, since it tells you exactly what your dog is eating.

The small print is short and sensible. Plant form omega 3 comes from the linseed, and useful fibre with it. A dog converts that form more slowly than the marine kind, but it is a real addition to the recipe. Yeast sits beside it. The entry most owners notice is the yucca extract, there mainly to cut stool odour.

Fibre converts to 3.8% of dry matter and ash to 5.5%, both unremarkable for a food of this build. Energy is estimated at 324 kcal per 100g against the 357 typical for adult dry food, so bowls end up a little fuller.

£1.37 a kilo, sold in a single 15kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 259 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £0.36 a day. The label asks 200 to 370 grams for dogs of 10kg to 20kg, so let the waistline decide where in that span your own dog belongs.