Happy Dog Adult Maxi review

This one finishes in our Good band, level with the middle of the adult dry shelf. The reasons it goes no further are structural, none of them dramatic. Cereal takes every plant slot straight after the animal proteins, several working entries give a category where an animal should be, and the protein finishes at a modest level for a large breed food. None of that makes it a poor meal. Happy Dog has been turning out this recipe for a long time, and for a big adult dog with a cast iron constitution it remains a calm, uncomplicated feed.

Ingredients, as declared: Animal proteins* (14 % poultry, 4 % lamb), maize, maize flour, rice, barley, oils and fats, fish meal (4 %, of which 50 % salmon meal), haemoglobin*, hydrolysed protein, beet pulp* (desugared), apple pomace*, potassium chloride, yeasts*, sodium chloride, seaweed*, linseed (0.16 %), dried whole egg (0.12 %), milk thistle, mussel meat* (0.02 %), yeasts* (extract), artichoke, dandelion, ginger (0.016 %), birch, stinging nettle, camomile, coriander, rosemary, sage, liquorice root, thyme (total dried herbs: 0.16 %). *dried.

The label opens with animal proteins and then does something plenty of rivals skip: it says what they are and how much of each. Poultry at 14% and lamb at 4% both carry the asterisk that runs down the list, meaning dried. The water is already out of both figures, so neither shrinks in the oven. Fish meal adds a further 4%, half of it salmon meal, and that is where the marine omega 3 comes from.

Chicken, turkey, duck or goose: poultry names the family and stops there. Most dogs will not mind, and it lets the maker buy whichever bird is going. The distinction only starts to matter when a specific bird has to be ruled in or out.

Maize, maize flour, rice and barley follow, so cereal carries the starch. Protein converts to 25.0% and fat to 14.1%. Carbohydrate is estimated at 51.1% of dry matter, above the 46.2% a typical adult dry food runs at. Those are unremarkable figures for a large breed maintenance food, not worrying ones.

Oils and fats is the entry that gives least away. It is an umbrella covering any fat from any plant or animal, and it sits sixth on the list, so it is doing real work without saying where it came from. Haemoglobin and hydrolysed protein are the same story in different clothing, both animal derived, neither tied to an animal.

Happy Dog shows its personality at the bottom of the list. Seaweed, linseed at 0.16%, dried whole egg at 0.12%, milk thistle and mussel meat at 0.02% add up to a lot of names and a very small weight. A herb blend totalling 0.16% sits behind them. Desugared beet pulp supplies the fibre and apple pomace adds a little more. Read the tail as care taken over the recipe, not as nutrition you could measure in the bowl.

£3.65 a kilo, sold in a 1kg bag, a 14kg bag and a twin pack of two 14kg bags.

As a rough guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 227 grams a day, which lands at £0.83 a day. That 227 grams assumes around 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. A dog of the size this large breed recipe is written for will work through proportionally more.