Husse Adult Active Life Small Breeds review

The average adult dry food reads Good, and so does this recipe. That reading comes from a dried meat leading the list, and from a carbohydrate estimate of 39.1% of dry matter where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%. The vitamin and mineral panel is dosed in print, not summarised. Nutritional balance sits at Good because protein, at 31.5% of dry matter, is solid without being spectacular, and because the energy figure is an estimate and not a declaration.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken, rice, maize, animal fat, linseed (2%), hydrolysed animal protein, vegetable fibres, dried salmon, salmon oil (1%), brewer's yeast, minerals, inulin (0.5%, source of fructo-oligosaccharides), dried eggs, mannan-oligosaccharides (0.1%), marine algae.

Dried chicken opens the list, and the word dried is doing real work there. Water is most of what a fresh meat entry weighs, and the oven drives it off, so a fresh headline shrinks a great deal by the time the kibble is bagged. A dried entry has already been through that, which means the place it holds in the ranking is the place it holds in the finished food.

Rice and maize do the binding behind it. Neither is exotic, both are well tolerated by the great majority of dogs, and together they keep the estimated carbohydrate to 39.1% of dry matter, below the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries. Fat at 18% is what makes this a food for a busy small dog rather than a sedate one.

The gut side is small but named. Inulin at 0.5% and mannan-oligosaccharides at 0.1% are prebiotic fibres, and the gut bacteria further down the tract live on them. Brewer's yeast sits behind, a natural source of B vitamins. Linseed at 2% supplies plant omega 3, while dried salmon and salmon oil at 1% add the marine kind, which a dog puts to use more directly.

A pair of entries stay vague. No species is attached to either the animal fat or the hydrolysed animal protein, and the hydrolysed protein is there as a palatant to make a small kibble taste worth finishing. Most dogs will never care, but if you are keeping a particular meat out of the bowl, those two lines cannot confirm that for you.

The additive panel is generous and printed in full. Vitamin E is there at 500 mg and vitamin C at 325 mg per kilo, with zinc at 65 mg, manganese at 35 mg and L-carnitine at 300 mg. Preservation is handled by tocopherol extracts from vegetable oils and rosemary extract rather than anything synthetic.

£6.42 a kilo, sold in a 7kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 221 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.42 a day. Most dogs on this small breed recipe will be well under that size, and the label asks 65 to 150 grams for a dog between 5kg and 10kg.