Husse Adult Active Life review

Our scoring settles this in the Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. The strength is the front of the label, where a dried meat rather than a fresh one leads and takes protein to 28.3% of dry matter. The counterweight is a carbohydrate estimate of 46.1% of dry matter, almost exactly the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. The plant side is doing an ordinary share of the work, and not an unusually small one. The pillars read Good for protein and processing and for nutritional balance, Average for transparency and Good for value, and the fair summary is that this is a competently built and well finished everyday food rather than a meat heavy one.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken, maize, peas, brown rice, rice, animal fat, vegetable fibres, linseed (3%), hydrolysed animal protein, dried salmon, salmon oil (1%), brewer's yeast, inulin (0.5%, source of fructo-oligosaccharides), dried eggs, minerals, marine algae.

Dried chicken leading the list is what sets the tone. It is already dehydrated, so it does not shrink away during baking the way a fresh meat entry does. Real protein reaches the finished kibble, and the analysis follows at 28.3% of dry matter.

Maize, peas, brown rice and rice make up the carrier, and there is no wheat anywhere on the list. That is the practical difference between this and a good deal of kibble built at the same level. Carbohydrate is estimated at 46.1% of dry matter, which sits right on the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Read the small print and the recipe gets more interesting. Dried salmon and salmon oil at 1% bring marine omega 3s, and linseed at 3% puts the plant form beside them. Dried eggs supply high quality protein in a small amount, and marine algae rounds out the trace minerals. Inulin at 0.5% is named as a source of fructo-oligosaccharides, a fermentable fibre the large intestine's bacteria live on. Brewer's yeast sits beside it, bringing B vitamins.

The additive panel is generous for an everyday food. Vitamin E is dosed at 500 mg and vitamin C at 425 mg per kilo, both antioxidants that matter more when a dog is working hard. L-carnitine at 300 mg per kilo is there for the way the body burns fat. Trace elements are printed line by line, with zinc at 65 mg, iron at 50 mg, manganese at 35 mg, copper at 5 mg, iodine at 1.5 mg and selenium at 0.1 mg per kilo. Calcium lands at 1.2% of dry matter.

A few reading notes before you compare it with anything else. The label declares no moisture, so the dry matter figures are worked from the 8% a dry food usually carries, and the 376 kcal per 100g is an estimate rather than a declared figure. Sepiolite in the technological additives is a clay used to stop the kibble clumping in the bag, and the animal fat and the hydrolysed animal protein name no species between them.

£5.08 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 224 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £1.14 a day. The label's own table asks 110 to 260 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, so if the two disagree, your hands over the ribs are the better guide.