Growling Tums Delicate review

This lands squarely in our Good band, the same band the typical adult dry food occupies, so the score is not the argument for it. Transparency reads Outstanding and value Good, in step with the overall placing, while protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average. The arithmetic explains that pair: duck makes up 36% of the recipe against potato at 31% with peas behind, so the plant side carries roughly as much as the animal side. What a score cannot show is how clean the list is. For an owner narrowing down a reaction, one named animal, one named fat and no anonymous entries is worth more than a couple of points either way.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck 36% (including Dried Duck 27%, Duck Fat 7% & Duck Gravy 2%), Potato (31%), Peas, Beet Pulp (7%), Brewer's Yeast, linseed, Minerals, Vitamins.

Duck at 36% arrives as dried duck at 27%, duck fat at 7% and duck gravy at 2%. With the water already gone, dried is the concentrated form. That 27% is close to what genuinely sits in the finished kibble. A fresh weight would have shrunk in the oven. Duck itself is easy on a dog's digestion and goes down well in taste tests, which is presumably why the recipe is named the way it is.

Naming the fat matters more than it looks. Most kibbles list an animal fat or a poultry fat and leave the species open, which quietly undoes an elimination diet. Here the fat is duck fat. Every animal entry stays on one bird, and an owner ruling ingredients in and out can trust the label.

Potato at 31% is the main energy source, with peas behind it. Wheat, rice, maize and barley are nowhere in the bag. Whole peas carry starch, and they bring fibre and antioxidants with a little plant protein. In a recipe where the animal share is 36% they are doing a fair amount of the filling as well.

Beet pulp at 7% is a generous fibre entry, and fibre is often the quiet reason a sensitive dog settles. Brewer's yeast follows, and few natural sources of B vitamins beat it. Linseed closes the working part of the list with plant omega 3, useful for skin and coat if slower to show than fish oil.

Every added mineral is printed with a dose, per kilo: iron at 50 mg, zinc at 50 mg and manganese at 35 mg. Copper follows at 15 mg, iodine at 1 mg and selenium at 0.3 mg, with biotin at 150 mcg on top. Biotin is worth a mention on a recipe aimed at delicate dogs, since it is one of the vitamins skin and coat lean on most.

£4.33 a kilo, sold in 3kg, 7.5kg, 10kg, 15kg and 20kg bags, the 20kg supplied as two 10kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 233 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £1.01 a day. Let the waistline set the portion, not the table on the bag.