Icepaw Adult Pure 24/12 review

Our Good band takes this one, and the median adult dry food is there too.

Two things stop it climbing further. Rice in three grinds adds up to a large part of the recipe, and the fat is declared simply as animal fat with no species attached. What it does well is genuine: a single named fish carrying the protein, a real 4% of salmon oil, moisture declared rather than assumed, and an additive panel that prints a figure against every line.

Ingredients, as declared: Fish meal (herring) 23%, rice 22%, rice flour 22%, animal fat, broken rice 7%, salmon oil 4%, dried beet pulp, linseed oil 0.2%, glucosamine HCL 0.01%, yucca schidigera 0.01%

Herring fish meal at 23% does all the animal work. A meal is an efficient way to buy fish protein, since its water is gone before it is weighed and the declaration arrives in the finished kibble more or less intact. Naming the species instead of settling for fish meal alone is the kind of detail worth rewarding. Protein converts to 26.4% of dry matter and fat to 13.2%.

The other half of the story is rice, and it arrives three times over: 22% rice, 22% rice flour and 7% broken rice. All three are the same grain in different grinds, so the cereal share is larger than a quick glance down the list suggests. Estimated carbohydrate finishes at 49.5% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical of an adult dry food.

Salmon oil at 4% is a generous pour of marine omega 3, which a dog uses directly on skin and coat and in the joints. Linseed oil at 0.2% adds a little of the plant version behind it. Dried beet pulp supplies the fibre.

The additive panel is where this label gets interesting. Taurine at 2000mg per kilo is a real dose of an amino acid usually linked with heart support. Vitamin E at 330mg and vitamin C at 200mg are the antioxidants, and choline chloride at 960mg is there for the liver. Zinc is dosed at 160mg and iron at 91mg, both printed on the panel.

Two entries deserve a plain reading. Glucosamine HCL at 0.01% and yucca schidigera at 0.01% are both present in very small amounts. The first is pointed at joints and the second at odour at the other end. Neither is doing heavy lifting at that level, and the food does not depend on either of them.

The one gap is the fat. Listing it as animal fat with no species is the only line on an otherwise clear label that leaves you guessing. For a dog simply eating dinner it changes nothing at all. For an owner running a fish only trial, it is the detail that keeps the recipe just short of a true single protein food.

£4.74 a kilo, sold in a 14kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 244 grams a day and £1.16 of food with it. That works from an energy need of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). There is no manufacturer portion table on this label, so weigh the first week out and adjust to the waistline.