Husse Complete Giant review

This one lands in our Average band, a band below the Good the typical adult dry food reaches. The gap is about transparency and cereal share, and not about safety. The largest protein source names no animal, and carbohydrate converts to an estimated 49.3% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for dry food. None of that stops a robust giant doing perfectly well on it, and the joint dosing is a genuine, printed positive. It simply means the best labels name more of what is in the bag.

Ingredients, as declared: dried animal proteins, wheat, wheat meal, wheat bran, maize, dried peas, animal fat, dried chicken, linseed (3%), vegetable fibres (2%), hydrolysed animal protein, minerals, fructo-oligosaccharides (0.3%), glucosamine (250 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (250 mg/kg).

Dried animal proteins lead the list, and the phrase deserves unpacking. It means rendered meat meal from unspecified species, and meal itself is no bad thing. Its water has already been taken out, so it carries protein efficiently, and that is how the recipe reaches 25% protein, or 27.2% of dry matter. What the wording withholds is which animals contributed. Dried chicken, the one named meat, appears well down the list, behind the cereals and the peas.

Wheat does much of the carrying, entered three times as grain, meal and bran, with maize and dried peas behind it. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 49.3% of dry matter, a little above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Most dogs digest cooked cereals without a murmur, so this is a construction note rather than a warning, but it does explain where the bulk of the bowl comes from.

The joint pair is the label's strongest card. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate are each dosed at 250 mg/kg, with the figures printed. For the breed group that carries the most weight on its joints, that is exactly the sort of inclusion you want to see stated. Fructo-oligosaccharides at 0.3% are the prebiotic here, and linseed at 3% covers skin and coat with omega fats.

Animal fat and hydrolysed animal protein, the flavour coating, are also unnamed as to species. Neither is unusual in kibble and most dogs never notice, but together with the headline protein they close the door on using this food for a strict elimination trial.

Calcium works out at 1.74% of dry matter, and the vitamin and trace-mineral panel is fully dosed on the label. The antioxidant work is done by tocopherol extracts and rosemary extract. Both are named, a nicety worth crediting on a label that names so little elsewhere.

£3.66 a kilo, sold in a 15kg bag with a 2 x 15kg option.

The label feeds a dog between 45 and 65kg at 495 to 780 grams a day, and dogs over 65kg at 650 grams. For comparison across foods, our standard estimate for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at 247 grams and 90p a day. The estimate runs on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A dog this food is actually built for will eat, and cost, correspondingly more.