Dr John Gold review

This one lands in our Average band, a step under the Good band the typical adult dry food occupies, and the reason is arithmetic with nothing hidden about it. Wheat first and maize third means the plant side carries the bowl, protein converts to 22.0% of dry matter, and the animal entry names chicken for only part of what it brings. Nutritional balance reads Poor and protein and processing Average, while transparency reads Good because the chicken and pea percentages are at least printed. For a healthy adult with a steady stomach, that reading describes a plain food rather than a risky one.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, poultry meal (17% chicken), maize, chicken fat, vegetables (4% peas), chicken gravy, minerals, linseed, yucca extract.

Wheat opens the list and maize follows in third, so the cereals are doing the heavy lifting. Carbohydrate converts to 59.9% of dry matter where the adult dry food typical is 46.2%, and protein settles at 22.0% of dry matter. That is a modest but workable protein level for a dog whose day involves a couple of walks rather than a day's work.

The animal content is poultry meal with 17% chicken written into it, a useful amount of named meat. Meal is a dried, concentrated protein, so it survives the oven far better than fresh meat does, and the higher the declared chicken share, the more of that concentrate you can account for. The rest of the poultry goes unnamed, and that is the trade for using a category term.

Chicken fat is named to the animal, which is the version worth having, and chicken gravy is a palatant that keeps the kibble appealing. Peas appear at 4% inside a vegetables entry, bringing a little plant protein, fibre and a spread of micronutrients, though that heading leaves the remainder of the line open.

Linseed is the quiet highlight. It supplies plant omega 3 and lignans, with a helping of fibre alongside. Fish oil gives a dog the skin and coat active forms faster, but the linseed is a genuine inclusion here. Yucca extract signs off the list, picked for what it does to stool odour and not for nutrition.

Fibre works out at 2.7% of dry matter and ash at 5.5%. Energy is estimated at 337 kcal per 100g, a little under the 357 typical for adult dry food, so portions run a fraction larger than the shelf average.

£1.33 a kilo. Two bag sizes are listed, 4kg and 15kg.

For a rough guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 249 grams a day, based on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.33 a day. The bag's own table asks 200 to 370 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, and of the two, the waistline is the better arbiter.