Green Pantry Small Dog review

A meat share this large is what puts the recipe in our Excellent band, a step above the Good band the typical adult dry food occupies. The analysis stands behind the label rather than quietly contradicting it: protein converts to 38.0% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to only 31.0%, where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%. That balance, tilted firmly towards the animal rather than the field, is why nutritional balance reads Outstanding, with protein and processing settling in Good.

Ingredients, as declared: 72% Chicken (Freshly Prepared Chicken 42%, Dried Chicken 28%), Sweet Potato (9%), Potato (9%), Peas (6%), Chicken Stock (2%), Fruits, Botanicals, & Herbs: Carrot, Spinach, Nettle, Seaweed, Celery Seed, Linseed, Horehound, Alfalfa, Apple, Pumpkin, Cranberry, Tomato, Aniseed

Splitting the chicken into 42% freshly prepared and 28% dried is the single most useful thing on this label. Fresh chicken is roughly three quarters water when it goes into the mixer and very little of that survives cooking, so a recipe leaning only on fresh meat can flatter itself. Here the dried share is large enough to carry the finished kibble on its own, and the analysis follows: protein at 38.0% of dry matter is a genuinely meat-led figure for a dry food.

Sweet potato and potato at 9% each, with peas at 6%, are all the starch this recipe uses. That is a light plant load by kibble standards, which is how estimated carbohydrate comes in at 31.0% of dry matter. Peas at 6% are nowhere near the quantity that starts looking like a filler, and whole peas bring useful fibre and antioxidants with them.

No grain appears on the list, and no fish either. Linseed is the omega source, sitting in the tail with seaweed, nettle and celery seed, which keeps the whole recipe fish free. Linseed gives the plant kind of omega 3. A dog converts that more slowly than the marine kind, so it works quietly over weeks and not days.

Energy is estimated at 367 kcal per 100g and fat at 18.5% of dry matter, which is a rich bowl by any measure. For an active terrier that is exactly right. For a small dog whose main hobby is the sofa, it is a reason to weigh portions and not pour by eye, because on a 5kg dog a small overpour is a large percentage.

The added trace elements are all chelated, the form that tends to cross the gut wall more readily. Every one is printed with a figure: 48 mg each of zinc and iron per kilo, 34 mg of manganese, 6 mg of copper and 0.96 mg of iodine. The fruit tail is garnish, from apple and pumpkin to cranberry, and the recipe would stand without it.

£8.56 a kilo, sold in 1.5kg and 4.5kg bags.

We work the day rate from a 15kg adult in moderate condition for comparability, which is a good deal bigger than most dogs eating this food. That comes to about 229 grams a day at roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), or £1.96 a day. A 5kg dog, far closer to this recipe's real audience, works out at 90 to 110 grams a day on the same basis. A bag goes a very long way for the dogs it was written for.