Happy Dog Flocken Vollkost review

This recipe finishes in our Average band, one band under the Good that most adult dry food reaches. Carbohydrate is not the culprit, since it converts to a shade under the shelf norm and the protein figure is healthy. What holds the reading down is naming. The largest animal entry is meat meal with no animal beside it, the liver is hydrolysed and unattributed, and wheat flour and maize flour take the leading plant slots. Plenty of dogs have eaten well on this recipe for a very long time, and nothing in the analysis contradicts that.

Ingredients, as declared: Maize flour (roller-dried), meat meal, wheat flour, wheat, poultry fat, flaked peas (2 %), carrots* (2 %), poultry protein*, beef fat, calcium carbonate, haemoglobin, fish meal, hydrolysed liver, monocalcium phosphate, beet pulp* (desugared), sodium chloride, apple pomace* (0.2 %), potassium chloride, elderberries, savory, marjoram, rosemary, sage, thyme, aniseed, basil, fennel, elderflowers, lavender flowers (total dried herbs: 0.11 %) *dried

Maize flour, roller dried, opens the list with wheat flour and wheat close behind. Between them they form the backbone of the recipe, and they are why the kibble binds and browns as it does. Protein converts to 30.4% and fat to 15.2%. Carbohydrate is estimated at 44.6% of dry matter, a little under the 46.2% a typical adult dry food runs at. On the analysis alone this is a solid maintenance food.

Meat meal in second place is the entry to understand. It is rendered, ground animal material dried down to a powder, and it has held up the dry food industry for decades because it packs a lot of protein into very little weight. The ingredient is fine; the label is the problem. Because no animal is named, a lamb cannot be told from a chicken, and nothing on the list would change if the animal changed between batches.

Poultry fat and beef fat are both named, and a great many labels do not manage that. Dried poultry protein sits above the calcium carbonate as a second animal entry. Further down, hydrolysed liver works as a palatant: it gives the bowl a smell a dog will cross the kitchen for. Haemoglobin adds iron rich animal protein. Fish meal supplies the marine element.

Flaked peas and carrots at 2% each are the vegetable content, with desugared beet pulp for fibre and apple pomace at 0.2% behind them. Elderberries lead a herb list totalling 0.11%, running from savory and marjoram through aniseed and fennel to lavender flowers. It is a charming tail and it is not doing a great deal of work.

Calcium carbonate and monocalcium phosphate are both present, which is how a recipe built on cereal and meal reaches the mineral levels a complete food has to hit. The vitamin and trace element panel is declared with the EU additive codes but without doses, so you can see what has been added without being told how much.

£4.20 a kilo, sold in 1.5kg and 10kg bags.

On the standard maintenance estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 228 grams a day, which comes to £0.96 a day. The label's own table asks 230 grams for a dog of that weight. The two figures sit close together.