Lifestage Adult Dog Grain Free Wet: Salmon and Potato review

We have not given this range a score, and one tin is the reason. The lamb declares no analysis of any kind, no protein, no fat, no moisture, and a label that quiet leaves nothing to weigh up. Because the five tins are sold as one range on one construction, holding the whole set back is fairer than marking four of them and guessing at the fifth.

What the other labels do show stands up on its own terms. The meat is a species rather than a category, it is declared at 60%, protein comes in at 35.7% of dry matter, and the only starch in sight is potato. There is nothing here to be wary of. This is a range whose paperwork has fallen behind its recipes, and a fuller label on the lamb would change the picture quickly.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon (60%), Dried Potato (5%), Dried Vegetables (1%), Minerals, Sunflower Oil, Dried Tomato, Dried Kelp, Dried Basil

The construction is the same everywhere: one named animal at 60%, dried potato at 5%, then a small run of dried vegetables and herbs, plus minerals and sunflower oil. Category terms are common on a wet shelf. A label that names the species and prints a percentage beside it is doing the single most useful thing it can, and every tin here that gives its list does that.

Dried potato is the thing to understand about the analysis. It goes into the tin with its water removed and takes that water back on, so 5% of dried potato is doing considerably more work than the figure suggests. That is why carbohydrate converts to an estimated 26.8% of dry matter against the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. It is the trade the range makes to stay off cereal, and potato is a calm, well tolerated way to make it.

Behind the potato the tail is short and sensible. Dried vegetables sit at 1% or 2% depending on the tin, with dried tomato and dried kelp and dried basil at trace level, and sunflower oil supplying a little unsaturated fat. Kelp is there for iodine as much as anything, and basil and tomato are closer to seasoning than to nutrition.

Two of the five labels carry their added vitamin and mineral panel: vitamins A, D3 and E with a B complex, then zinc, manganese, iron, copper, selenium and iodine, each in its usual mineral salt. The doses do not reach us with the listing, so the panel is described here and not quoted. Sodium selenite is the selenium, one of just two forms pet food is permitted to use and the commoner of them.

Salmon at 60% with dried potato at 5% and dried vegetables at 1%. This is the range's only fish tin, and a natural choice where a coat does better on an oily one.

The chicken tin is £3.69 a kilo and the other four are £3.80 a kilo, all in the same 395 g size. Sevens are the standard pack across the range, with the lamb and salmon also sold singly and the chicken in a case of 12.

As a guide, take about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly 695 grams of the chicken, duck or salmon, and 700 grams of the turkey. The chicken works out at £2.57 a day, and the other three at between £2.64 and £2.66. The lamb is left out of that sum, since without an analysis there is nothing to base it on.