K9 Optimum Adult Medium review

The Good band is where this lands, keeping company with the bulk of adult dry food. It gets there without a single flourish. The meat is named and printed with its shares, the fats are named, the starch is ordinary for a kibble of this type at 45.0% of dry matter, and protein converts to 27.5%. What sets it apart from its bigger and smaller siblings is transparency, reading Outstanding, with protein and processing and nutritional balance sitting at Average behind it.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Freshly Prepared (20%), Chicken Dried (17%), Rice, Maize, Chicken Fat, Chicken Gravy, Salmon Freshly Prepared (4%), Whole Oats, Beet Pulp, Prairie Meal, Brewers Yeast, Egg Powder, Minerals, Salmon Oil, Turmeric, Marigold (Source Of Lutein), Mannan Oligosaccharides, Fructose Oligosaccharides, Glucosamine, Methylsulphonylmethane, Yucca Schidigera, Blackcurrant, Nz Green Lipped Mussel, Rosemary, Pomegranate

Chicken is declared in two forms, 20% freshly prepared and 17% dried, and printing the split is the useful part. The fresh entry goes in wet, and much of that weight is water the oven drives off. That puts the dried chicken quietly ahead of its second place for protein work. Together they take protein to 27.5% of dry matter, with estimated carbohydrate at 45.0% against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Rice and maize supply most of the starch, and whole oats behind them add fibre. The oats also carry manganese and selenium, and B vitamins with them. Beet pulp is the specialist fibre in the recipe, gently fermentable and the entry most responsible for firm, well-formed stools. Chicken gravy sits between the two groups and is there to make the finished kibble taste of chicken rather than of cereal.

Salmon at 4% plus salmon oil brings marine omega 3s, the form a dog uses most efficiently, and it is what a coat responds to over a few weeks of feeding. Egg powder further down is a small but high quality protein, complete in the amino acids a dog needs and easy to digest. Brewer's yeast sits alongside, and few natural ingredients carry more of the B vitamin group.

Two prebiotics work as a pair here. Mannan oligosaccharides come from yeast cell walls and fructose oligosaccharides from plants. Neither is there for the dog. Both are there for the gut bacteria that do the useful work in the large intestine. With beet pulp in the same recipe, the digestive side has had genuine thought put into it.

Turmeric, marigold as a source of lutein, yucca schidigera, blackcurrant and pomegranate fill the tail of the list. Among them for the joints sit glucosamine, green lipped mussel from New Zealand and methylsulphonylmethane. They are sound choices, and the joint three are the ones most owners would add themselves. No quantities are printed, so take them as a welcome extra and not a measured dose.

The added nutrients are all dosed. Taurine runs at 850 mg per kilo and carnitine at 500 mg. Zinc is supplied both as a glycine chelate at 33 mg and as a sulphate at 115 mg per kilo. Selenium comes as sodium selenite at 0.1 mg per kilo, the usual permitted form at a small standard amount. Calcium works out at 1.1% of dry matter, which is where an adult food should be.

£3.17 a kilo, in bags of 2kg and 12kg.

Taking the standard maintenance estimate for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), the daily portion comes out near 234 grams at £0.74. For a dog between 15kg and 19kg the maker's low activity table asks 195 to 235 grams. There is barely anything between the two, so your dog's waistline settles the rest.