Millies Wolfheart Lamb & Veg review

Our scoring settles Lamb & Veg in the Good band, the same band that most of the adult dry shelf occupies. Transparency reads Outstanding on the strength of named lamb entries with percentages attached and a mineral panel printed in full, with protein and processing some way back at Average. Nutritional balance reads Poor, and that is the honest story of the analysis. Protein sits at 20.7% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate at 47.8%, so the plant side carries more than the meat headline first suggests. For a dog being kept to a single protein, that is usually a trade worth making.

Ingredients, as declared: Freshly Prepared Lamb (24%), Sweet Potato (19%), Potato, Dried Lamb (17%), Lamb Fat (8%), Tapioca, Chickpeas, Pea Fibre, Lamb Gravy (1%), Minerals, Tomato Pomace, Joint Pack (Glucosamine 177.5 mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 177.5 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 125 mg/kg), Mixed Herbs, Dried Apple, Dried Carrot, Dried Cranberry, Aniseed & Fenugreek, Dried Seaweed, Burdock Root, Dried Camomile, Dried Dandelion, Dried Peppermint

The lamb arrives twice, which is the right way round. Freshly prepared lamb at 24% goes in wet and shrinks in the oven, while dried lamb at 17% is already concentrated and does the steadier work of putting protein in the bowl. Lamb fat at 8% and lamb gravy at 1% finish the animal side, and the analysis lands at protein of 20.7% of dry matter and fat of 17.4%.

What makes this recipe genuinely useful is what is missing. There is no unnamed animal fat, no hydrolysed protein and no fish oil, so the single protein claim survives a proper read of the label rather than only the front of the bag. That is rarer than the marketing on most lamb foods would have you believe, and it is what makes this one workable for a dog being tested against one meat at a time.

Sweet potato at 19% and potato do the binding, backed by tapioca and chickpeas, with pea fibre added for the gut. Tapioca is essentially starch, so it is there for structure, while pea fibre is the entry with a job, giving the stool something to hold together with. Fibre converts to 4.3% of dry matter.

The joint additions carry printed doses, 177.5 mg/kg of glucosamine, the same again of methylsulfonylmethane and 125 mg/kg of chondroitin sulphate. The mineral panel is dosed in print too, with zinc at 48 mg, iron at 48 mg, manganese at 34 mg, iodine at 0.96 mg and selenium at 0.29 mg per kilo.

Tomato pomace sits at the bottom of the list, and with it a trace level tail of apple, carrot and cranberry, burdock root and camomile, dandelion, peppermint and seaweed. They are seasoning. Judge the food on the lamb, because that is where the substance sits.

£4.92 a kilo, sold in 700g, 4kg and 12kg bags.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition that is around 229 grams a day and £1.12, based on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). For dogs from 15kg to 20kg the bag's chart asks 175 to 265 grams. Where your dog sits in that range is a question for the waistline.