Fish4Dogs Finest Complete: Salmon with Potato review

The three of them settle in our Good band, the same placing the typical adult dry food takes. The gap inside the range is easy to account for. Salmon meal runs at 22% in the sardine recipe against 12% in the other two. Dried fish holds its protein, and fresh fish loses much of its weight to water. That same difference lifts the sardine's fat to 17.1% of dry matter and drops its estimated carbohydrate to 43.5%, where the salmon and the white fish both land at 47.8%. Nutritional balance holds at Average throughout and transparency reads Outstanding on all three, with protein and processing Average on the salmon and the white fish and a step up to Good on the sardine. Nothing here is unusual for a fish kibble, and all three are honest about what they contain.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon (27%), Potato (21%), Pea Starch, Salmon Meal (12%), Salmon Oil (10%), Beet Pulp, Brewers Yeast, Sunflower Oil, Minerals.

Fish leads every recipe, declared by name and by percentage, with no land animal anywhere in the range. In the oven, fresh fish gives up most of its weight, and that is what makes the salmon meal behind it matter. Meal is dried fish, already concentrated, and it holds its protein into the finished kibble.

That salmon meal is also the reason none of the three counts as a single species diet. The white fish recipe carries 12% salmon meal and 9% salmon oil behind its 27% white fish, and the sardine recipe leans on 22% salmon meal against 26% sardine. Salmon is in the bowl whichever bag you choose. For a dog that simply needs fish rather than meat, that is no obstacle at all. For a dog being tested against one particular fish, it is the fact to have.

The starch comes from potato or sweet potato with pea starch behind it. Pea starch is the refined carbohydrate part of the pea rather than the whole vegetable, so it binds the kibble without bringing much beyond energy. Beet pulp supplies the fermentable fibre a fish diet benefits from. Brewers yeast adds B vitamins and appeal, and sunflower oil, one of the better plant oils, tops up the fat.

The declared extras are short and sensible: vitamin A at 22,500 IU, vitamin D3 at 900 IU and vitamin E at 700 IU per kilo, taurine at 1 g and iodine at 1.6 mg. Most dogs make taurine for themselves, so topping it up is a common precaution in fish and grain free recipes. Tocopherol rich extracts do the preserving here, the natural vitamin E route with no synthetic antioxidant.

Salmon at 27% with potato at 21%, backed by 12% salmon meal and the largest oil share in the range at 10% salmon oil. Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter and fat to 13.0%, with energy at 367 kcal per 100 grams. It is the most straightforward reading of the brand's idea, one fish from front to back.

Sold in 1.5kg, 6kg and 12kg bags, the same three sizes whichever fish you choose.

Using the standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 229 grams of the salmon or the white fish. The sardine comes to about 221 grams. The label's own table sits close to that, asking 205 to 213 grams at 16kg, so let the ribs settle the last few grams.