Happy Dog Mini Adult review

Our scoring lands this one in our Good band, ahead of the typical adult dry food and short of the band above it. The reason is naming rather than nourishment. Dried animal protein is declared at 20% between the poultry and the lamb. The meat meal, the hydrolysed protein and the oils and fats behind them carry no species at all, which is what holds protein and processing at Good. Transparency comes out Good, and value reads Good beside it. Energy sits at 373 kcal per 100 grams against the 357 typical of adult dry food, so a small dog gets what it needs from a small measure.

The label also stops short of declaring ash and moisture, which is why the nutrition table stays on an as fed basis and does not convert to dry matter.

Ingredients, as declared: Animal proteins* (poultry 16 %, lamb 4 %), maize flour, maize, oils and fats, barley, meat meal, fish meal (5 %, of which 50 % salmon meal), rice, hydrolysed protein, beet pulp* (desugared), apple pomace*, potassium chloride, yeasts*, sodium chloride, seaweed*, linseed (0.16 %), dried whole egg (0.1 %), milk thistle, yeasts* (extract), mussel meat* (0.02 %), yucca schidigera*, artichoke, dandelion, ginger (0.016 %), birch leaves, stinging nettle, camomile, coriander, rosemary, sage, liquorice root, thyme (total dried herbs: 0.15 %) *dried

The animal side opens with dried animal proteins, poultry at 16% and lamb at 4%, and the asterisk earns its place. These are dried meats, so the declared weight is close to the weight that survives into the finished kibble. Poultry as a category covers chicken, turkey, duck or goose. The bag never says which, so you get the quantity without the bird.

Maize flour and maize follow straight after, with barley and rice further down the list. Barley is well digested once cooked and brings useful fibre along with it, and desugared beet pulp adds a gentler, more fermentable bulk behind it.

Fish meal makes up 5% of the recipe, half of it salmon meal, and it is the main source of marine omega 3. That makes it the most interesting entry in the middle of the label. Linseed at 0.16% adds the plant version of the same fats in a small way. Between them they mean no bag of this recipe is fish free.

Oils and fats sits fourth, and that phrase is as far as the label goes. A good poultry fat and a blended commodity oil would look the same here, and there is no telling which one arrived in the batch you are holding.

Happy Dog does its signature work at the bottom of the list: milk thistle, artichoke, dandelion, ginger, stinging nettle plus a dozen more, all inside a total dried herb declaration of 0.15%. Mussel meat at 0.02% and dried whole egg at 0.1% sit in the same bracket. Read them as character rather than medicine.

The part that genuinely does the work is the mineral panel, and it is dosed in print. Zinc comes in at 125 mg per kilo, and 25 mg of that is an amino acid chelate, a form most dogs absorb more readily. Iron follows at 105 mg, manganese at 25 mg, copper at 10 mg and selenium at 0.15 mg.

£3.33 a kilo, sold in 800g, 4kg, 10kg and 18kg bags.

Taking the usual yardstick of a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), that comes to roughly 225 grams a day and £0.75. Almost every dog eating this recipe will be smaller than that. The label's own table asks 45 grams a day at 2kg rising to 150 grams at 10kg. Find your dog's weight on that, then let the waistline settle the rest.