Markus Muhle Markus Muehle Natural Dog Food review

Our reading puts this in the Good band. The cold-pressed category has its middle in the same band, and this bag sits a little under that mark. What carries it is the animal side: a concentrated meat meal in the lead, plus named game tripe, venison bone and sea fish, backed by a micronutrient panel that shows its working. What holds it back is the grain base, with carbohydrate converting to 48.5% of dry matter against the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food, and a lead ingredient that never says which bird it came from. Transparency reads Excellent, with protein and processing and value both on Good and nutritional balance on Average.

Ingredients, as declared: 28% dried poultry meat meal, brown maize meal, brown rice meal, 8% game tripe meal, 5% venison bone meal, maize germs, Jerusalem artichoke meal, beet root meal, 5% sea fish meal, linseed oil, rapeseed oil (cold, pressed), fruit powder ( Acticell), herbs,2% powdered egg yolk, dried peat, dried herb mixture, salmon oil, dried Mojave yucca, seaweed meal.

Start with the cold pressing, because it shapes everything else about this bag. Ingredients are ground and mixed, then pressed into pellets at low temperature, with no cooking and no expansion. The finished pellet breaks apart when it meets water, where an expanded one would swell. Owners of fast eaters are loyal to the format for that behaviour, and Markus Muehle has built its whole reputation on it.

Dried poultry meat meal leads at 28%. Meal is the concentrated form, its water already driven off. That 28% therefore delivers far more actual animal than the same printed number on a fresh meat label. Poultry is the catch. Chicken, turkey, duck and goose all fall under that word, and it pins down none of them. That vagueness is the biggest single thing keeping this recipe from a higher place on our scoring.

The rest of the animal side is more interesting than most bags manage. Game tripe meal at 8% brings the stomach of ruminants, rich in the enzymes and bacteria that make it so easy on a dog. Venison bone meal at 5% is doing the calcium work, which converts to 1.46% of dry matter, a comfortable figure for a large breed puppy still building frame. Sea fish meal at 5% adds marine protein, and powdered egg yolk at 2% rounds the amino acids out.

Brown maize meal and brown rice meal carry the base, with maize germs behind them. Naming the grains outright is far more useful to an owner than the vague cereals entry so many labels prefer, and it does mean the bag cannot serve a grain-free plan. Jerusalem artichoke meal brings inulin. It is a prebiotic fibre the gut's own bacteria feed on, and beet root meal adds gentle bulk alongside it.

The finishing tail is where the whole food thinking shows. Linseed oil and cold-pressed rapeseed oil handle the plant fats, salmon oil the marine omega 3s, and seaweed meal the iodine. Mojave yucca and dried peat are traditional continental additions rather than nutritional heavy lifting, and a fruit powder blend sits alongside them. Doses are printed against the vitamins and the trace elements, choline included, though the herbs are the one entry that stays behind a general heading.

£3.23 a kilo. The bag is 15kg, and you can buy one or a pair.

On the standard maintenance estimate a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). On this food's 364 kcal per 100g that is roughly 231 grams, or £0.75 a day. The label's own guide for a dog between 15 and 20kg is 180 to 240 grams a day.