Healthy Paws Adult: Rabbit, Duck & Brown Rice review

Across the five, our scoring holds to the Good band throughout, with the game recipe at the top. The typical adult dry food sits in that band too, so the whole range keeps company with it. What separates them is the size of the declared meat share. Game puts 33% on the label where the others declare 21% to 26%, and the recipes leaning hardest on rice finish lowest. Every one of them names its animal and prints a figure for it, which is the harder half of the job.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried Rabbit and Dried Duck 26%, Brown Rice 25.9%, White Rice, Oats, Chicken Fat, Beet Pulp, Sunflower Oil, Chicken Stock, Alfalfa, Salmon Oil, Minerals, Vitamins, Linseed, Garlic 0.46%, Carrot, Seaweed, Cranberry, Dandelion, Cleavers, Parsley, Blueberry.

Four of the five lists open with dried meat, and for a kibble that is the right way round. Dried meat has already been through the oven. The declared figure therefore lands near what reaches the bowl, unlike freshly prepared meat that loses most of its weight in water. The declarations run from 21% dried chicken up to 33% game, and the game recipe is the only one that unpacks its own headline into dried duck, with dried venison and dried rabbit alongside.

Rice does most of the carrying. Brown rice and white rice appear in nearly every recipe. Oats add fibre with a slow release of energy, and millet stands in at 26% in the game and 9% in the turkey. Millet is a useful choice for a dog who reacts to wheat, since it carries no gluten at all. Oats, once cooked, are as gentle on a dog's digestion as cereals get.

The herb and berry tail is identical across the range: alfalfa, carrot, cranberry, dandelion, cleavers, parsley and blueberry, with seaweed added to two of them. All of these sit right at the bottom of the list, and no recipe depends on them. They do bring antioxidants and a little more character than a plain kibble would have. Garlic at 0.47% belongs to the same tail. In amounts this small it is a long way from the doses that cause dogs trouble, and it is there for palatability and its traditional immune reputation.

Linseed and salmon oil carry the omega side in all but the lamb recipe. A dog uses the marine form in salmon oil straight off, while the plant form in linseed has to be converted first. Having both is a sensible belt and braces. The lamb recipe skips both, which is what makes it the fish-free choice, and it leans on lamb fat and sunflower oil instead.

The additive panel is dosed in print across the range. Iron is at 160 mg, zinc at 133 mg, manganese at 105 mg, copper at 58 mg, iodine at 1.57 mg and selenium at 0.64 mg per kilo. Vitamin C is at 168 mg and vitamin E at 100 mg. The trace elements are all sulphates, the more ordinary form, and there are no chelates. Selenium is sodium selenite, the workhorse of the industry, not the better absorbed yeast form. Methionine is added as well, the amino acid a cereal-heavy recipe is most likely to run short of, so its presence tells you the recipe has been balanced and not simply mixed.

Dried rabbit and dried duck together at 26%, on brown rice at 25.9% with white rice and oats. Two details are worth spotting. The fat and the stock here are chicken rather than rabbit or duck. Fibre is the highest in the range at 5%, which suits a dog who does better with a little more bulk in the bowl.

£5.50 a kilo for the chicken, game, lamb and rabbit recipes and £5.25 for the turkey, each sold in 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats roughly 238 to 243 grams a day depending on the recipe, on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out between £1.25 and £1.34 a day. The label's own chart puts a 20kg dog somewhere between 135 and 310 grams, a wide span, so let the waistline settle the portion.