GAIN Elite Small Dogs: Adult review

1. Adult Salmon 56.8
2. Puppy 56.6
3. Light 51.0
4. Adult 50.8
5. Senior 48.0

Five recipes across Good and Average. Typical dry food: Good.

The grain load keeps all five near the typical dry food, with the salmon recipe's shorter list pulling it ahead and the senior's extra starch holding it a step back.

• Dried chicken and turkeymin 23%Dried meat high on the list; its water is already gone.
• Ricemin 20%
• Wholegrain maize, dehulled oatsOats digest easily once cooked.
• Poultry fat, maize gluten mealThe gluten meal raises the protein figure with plant protein.
• Hydrolysed chicken proteinFor taste. Rules out a strict elimination trial.
• Dried sugar beet pulp, maize flour
• Fishmeal, linseed, salmon oilFish twice over.
• Minerals, chicory FOSmin 0.3%Prebiotic fibre for the gut's own bacteria.
• TruCal milk mineral complex1,000mg/kgPart of the calcium comes from dairy.
• Products from processing of plants

Meat

Min 23% chicken and turkey

22% on the senior up to 28% on the puppy; 29% salmon on the fish recipe.

Protein, dry matter

27.2%

31.5% on the puppy, 23.9% on the senior.

Fat, dry matter

15.2%

7.6% on the light.

The middle of the range, and the one most small adults will end up on.

Four recipes open with dried chicken and turkey, from a minimum of 22% on the senior to 28% on the puppy; the fifth leads with dried salmon at a minimum of 29%. Rice, wholegrain maize and dehulled oats do the filling, and maize gluten meal lifts the protein figure on the four poultry bags.

Every bag carries a hydrolysed protein for palatability, chicory FOS, dried beet pulp and the TruCal milk mineral complex at 1000 mg/kg. Fish turns up in all five, as fishmeal or salmon oil.