Laughing Dog Grain Free Adult Complete Wet: Duck Casserole review

All three casseroles reach our Excellent band, matching where the typical adult wet food lands. Wet scores well as a category, so holding that line takes a genuinely meat-led recipe, and 60% named meat with no category terms anywhere on the label is what does it here. Carbohydrate converts to between 6.0% and 16.0% of dry matter across the three, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, and protein to 40.0% or 42.0% depending on the tray. Fat separates them most. The lamb converts to 26.0% of dry matter while the chicken and the duck both reach 36.0%. Shared construction or not, these are noticeably different dinners.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck (60%), Dried Potato (5%), Dried Peas (1.4%), Sunflower Oil (0.75%), Dried Carrot (0.65%), Salmon Oil (0.3%), Tomato Pomace, Dried Kelp (0.0075%), Dried Basil, Yucca Extract (0.005%).

Each tray opens with its meat at 60%, named and quantified, and the only other animal entry anywhere is the salmon oil. Chicken, duck and lamb are all highly digestible, and all three tend to go down well with a dog that has started losing interest in dinner.

The base is small and printed out in full. Dried potato at 4% in the chicken casserole and 5% in the duck and lamb, dried peas at 1.5% or 1.4%, and dried carrot at 0.65% on all three. The chicken tray adds potato starch as a binder where the duck and lamb do without it.

Sunflower oil and salmon oil supply the added fats. The chicken tray keeps both to 0.2%, while the duck and lamb lift the sunflower oil to 0.75% and the salmon oil to 0.3%. Salmon oil is the omega-3 source in all three, and at these levels it is a useful touch rather than a therapeutic amount.

The botanical tails differ between recipes. Chicken carries tomato pomace with chicory at 0.1%, yucca at 0.015%, blackcurrant, rosemary at 0.005% and pomegranate. Duck and lamb swap that for tomato pomace, dried kelp at 0.0075%, dried basil and yucca at 0.005%. Chicory feeds gut bacteria and kelp is a natural iodine source. Yucca has been used for years to take the smell down at the other end.

Every tray carries a dosed vitamin and mineral panel, though the three are typed inconsistently from one another and only the duck itemises copper. No calcium or other mineral level appears in the analysis, which is normal for a wet tray and worth knowing if you are already feeding a supplement alongside.

Duck at 60% and the richest tray here at 125 kcal per 100g, with fat at 36.0% of dry matter. Wet food leans on chicken far more than on duck. For a dog raised on poultry and ready for something else, that makes this tray a sensible move. Copper is itemised on this panel and on no other in the range.

£4.43 a kilo, sold as a case of 8 x 395g trays.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at between £2.98 and £3.38 a day depending on the recipe. That £2.98 to £3.38 assumes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That corresponds to roughly 672 grams of the duck casserole, 706 of the chicken and 764 of the lamb.