Husse Opus Ocean review

Our scoring lands Opus Ocean in the Good band, level with the middle of the adult dry category rather than clear of it. The case rests on the analysis rather than on the front of the bag. Protein converts to 41.8% of dry matter and carbohydrate to only 24.4%, close to half the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries, and that combination is unusual on a kibble at any level. The ceiling on it is the same one the rest of the brand meets. The meat percentage goes undeclared, and two animal entries never name a species. That is label practice, not what goes into the bag.

Ingredients, as declared: salmon, potato, peas, animal fat, linseed, vegetable fibres, yeast, hydrolysed animal protein, minerals, salmon oil, fructo-oligosaccharides (0.3%), lecithin, sea algae, rosemary.

Salmon opens the list, and the analysis suggests there is plenty of it. Protein comes in at 38.0% as fed and 41.8% of dry matter once the declared 9.0% moisture is out, with fat at 18.0% and carbohydrate estimated at 22.3% as fed. Fish protein is highly digestible and carries an amino acid profile that suits dogs well, so a fish led recipe at this protein level starts from a strong footing.

Potato and peas share the starch job, and with no cereal on the list the carbohydrate total stays unusually low for a kibble at 24.4% of dry matter, against the 46.2% that is typical. Vegetable fibres, most often beet pulp, lift crude fibre to 3.7%, a helpful figure for a dog whose stools have been on the loose side.

Ash at 9.0% deserves a word, since it is higher than most. Once everything burnable has gone, what is left is the mineral fraction, and a figure like this usually means bone, fish frames included, is well represented. That is no trouble at all for a healthy adult, and calcium works out at 1.43% of dry matter, a level a grown dog handles easily.

The finishing entries are few and each pulls its weight. Linseed adds plant omega 3s beside the marine ones in the salmon oil, and yeast supplies B vitamins along with the mannan-oligosaccharides that act as a prebiotic. Fructo-oligosaccharides at 0.3% approach the same job from another direction, and sea algae brings iodine. Rosemary at the end almost certainly means the extract, used to keep the fat in good condition. There is no added salt anywhere on the list, which is not something every kibble can say.

Two entries stop this being read as fish and fish alone. The animal fat is named by family, as is the hydrolysed animal protein. Salmon is the one animal actually identified in the recipe, but the label cannot promise nothing else is in there. For a dog who simply thrives on fish and not on chicken, that is unlikely to matter at all. For a formal exclusion trial run with a vet, it does.

The entry listed as 'minerals' is similarly broad, though the additive panel underneath spells the important ones out. Iron is at 201 mg/kg, zinc at 108 mg/kg plus 12 mg/kg from a second source, manganese at 63 mg/kg, copper at 7.5 mg/kg and selenium at 0.20 mg/kg. Biotin is dosed at 1 mg/kg, and clinoptilolite at 10 g/kg does the usual flow agent job.

£5.24 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 205 grams a day at roughly 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £1.07 a day. For dogs from 11kg to 30kg the label's own table asks 99 to 300 grams, and the waistline settles where in that span your dog belongs.