Husse Grain Free Skin & Coat Adult review

Our banding leaves this bag and the middle of the dry adult shelf on the same rung: it reads Good, and so does the typical adult dry food. The lift is in the analysis, not in anything printed on the front. Protein converts to 41.3% of dry matter, estimated carbohydrate stops at 26.2% where the typical adult dry food runs to 46.2%, and the vitamin and mineral panel is dosed line by line. Naming is what holds it back. Only the word animal is given for the fat and for the palatant, and the salmon carries no percentage of its own.

Ingredients, as declared: dried salmon, dried potatoes, dried peas, animal fat, vegetable fibres, linseed (2%), brewer's yeast, hydrolysed animal protein, salmon oil (1%), minerals, inulin (source of fructo-oligosaccharides), marine algae.

Dried salmon leads, and dried is the useful word here. A fresh meat in the same slot would lose weight in the oven. This salmon has had its water taken out already, so its top position means what it appears to mean. The label stops short of a percentage, so the exact share is left unstated. The analysis reads like a recipe with plenty of it: protein finishes at 41.3% of dry matter and fat at 19.6%, both generous for a kibble.

Dried potatoes and dried peas do the binding in place of grain. Potato is largely starch, while peas add fibre along with a spread of vitamins and a little plant protein. Between them they hold estimated carbohydrate at 26.2% of dry matter, well under the 46.2% the typical adult dry food carries, so the plant side genuinely plays a supporting role.

The coat case rests on two omega sources working at different speeds. Salmon oil at 1% arrives in the marine form that skin can use straight away. Linseed at 2% supplies the plant form, and a dog's body has to convert that before it can be used. Marine algae adds iodine and trace minerals from the sea. Brewer's yeast, meanwhile, carries the B vitamins that skin and coat lean on, and carries plenty of them. Give a new bag a month or so to show in the coat rather than a fortnight.

Two entries stay vague, and it is fairer to say so than to skate past it. Animal fat is the recipe's main energy source and hydrolysed animal protein is the palatant that makes the kibble taste of something, and neither names the creature it came from. For most dogs this changes nothing at all. It matters only if you are ruling a particular meat in or out.

The supplement panel is dosed rather than implied: taurine at 1000 mg and L-carnitine at 300 mg per kilo, zinc at 65 mg, vitamin E at 500 mg and vitamin C at 425 mg. Zinc and vitamin E are the two that skin draws on most, so seeing both printed with figures on a food carrying this name is reassuring. The sepiolite at the end of the additives is a clay used to keep the kibble flowing, not a nutrient.

£7.08 a kilo, sold as a 12kg bag, with a twin pack of two of them also listed.

The standard maintenance estimate for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That comes to roughly 227 grams from this recipe and £1.61 a day. For a dog of 10kg to 20kg, the label's own table asks between 90 and 200 grams, a little under that estimate. Let your dog's waistline settle the difference.